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Comment by pimbrouwers

3 days ago

Our shop converted 6 years ago, from C# to exclusively F#. I also author and maintain some packages (falco, donald, validus and others). The language is tough to learn if you're coming from a C-style language. But worth the effort and experience. It's extremely concise a true delight to build programs in that are fast, robust and durable.

There are a few drawbacks, depending on your perspective:

- compilation is slower than c# and hot reload isn't supported (it's in progress)

- there are very few opportunities to use it professionally

- hiring devs can be challenging

14 comments

pimbrouwers

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Foofoobar12345  2 days ago

Hiring devs is perfectly fine if you don't look for F# skills - just hire generally smart people, and allow them 1-2 weeks to get comfortable with F#. Make them just solve problems from project euler or something.

For those who have already done functional programming, they wont take more than 2 days to start getting productive. For those who have written a lot of code, it will take them ~2 weeks to pick up functional thinking.

Anyone who is still uncomfortable with F# after 1 month - well that's a strong signal that the dev isn't a fast learner.

Additionally, I've never had anyone reject our job offer because we do F#. I'm sure a whole bunch of people might only be looking for python or javascript jobs, but that's fine because I'm not looking for them. I always have more people who I want to hire but I can't due to budget constraints.

Source: direct experience - I run a pure F# company with a team size of ~80.

  • GiorgioG  2 days ago

    For me, my discomfort with F# is due to not knowing if what I’m doing is the correct/idiomatic way of doing things. With C# I have learned all the ways I should not do things…so it’s easier/faster to just use C#.

  • CharlieDigital  2 days ago 

        > Anyone who is still uncomfortable with F# after 1 month - well that's a strong signal that the dev isn't a fast learner.

    I think you may be reading this wrong. Agree with sibling post that even teaching folks C# -- which isn't far off of TypeScript, Java, etc. -- is never so straightforward if the individual wants a full grasp of the tool.

    For myself, I feel that I have "full" command of C# as a programming language, but also how to structure projects, how to isolate modules, how to decouple code, how to set up a build system from scratch for C#, how do deploy and scale applications built with C#, what the strengths and weaknesses are, etc. My definition of "comfort" would entail a broader understanding of not just the syntax, but of the runtime ecosystem in which that code operates.

  • pimbrouwers  2 days ago

    Hi Isaac ;) Of course you can train people. But in my experience they take a lot longer to learn than you suggest.

  • Kwpolska  2 days ago

    The problem is, many recruiters don't work with this mindset. If they're hiring a Java developer, and they get a CV from someone who has 1 year of Java experience and 5 years of C# experience, they see 1 year of experience, and immediately put it on the "unqualified" pile.

z5h  3 days ago

As a proficient Elm developer with industry experience, I’m wondering what are the biggest challenges in hiring devs? Is it the paradigm, learning the ecosystem, lack of interest? Are you currently hiring?

  • Akronymus  3 days ago

    As someone who quite likes f#: It seems like a chicken and egg problem, not many companies doing f# because not many devs know it and not many devs learning it because not many companies are doing it.

    I certainly wish I were doing f# professionally, but I only ever found 1 job listing for it, and that was in vienna while I am located like 200km away from it :(

    Speaking of elm: I really like elmish for the frontend, when I need to make a dynamic page in the first place. Maybe that could be to your interest? (It transpiles to react under the hood via fable, which you can webpack into a drop in bundle. But I digress)

  • DeathArrow  2 days ago

    Jobs are kind of rare. I have to learn F# hoping maybe I will find a job in one or two years. And if I find it, they might want someone with F# work experience.

cogman10  3 days ago

How does the typing system work for F#?

From the article, it looks like it's mostly dynamically typed. Or is it inferred? Or is it something else?

Like, if I write

    let hello value =
      print value
    
    hello "world"
    hello 2

Does that just work?

To me, that'd be a point that might steer me away from the language. Deducible types seem vital to larger and long lived projects.

  • neonsunset  3 days ago

    F# is a statically typed language with gradual typing and full type inference.

    Given

      let hello value =
      printfn "%A" value
    
  hello "world"
  hello 2

    The binding "hello" has "'a -> unit" signature where 'a is a generic argument it accepts because the "printfn" binding with a given format specifier is generalized the same way and an unconstrained 'T (here 'a) is the most narrow type inferred for "hello".

    • debugnik  2 days ago

      > with gradual typing

      Isn't gradual typing widely understood to mean "gradual between static and dynamic", which F# certainly isn't?

DeathArrow  2 days ago

>- there are very few opportunities to use it professionally

- hiring devs can be challenging

Those drawbacks are huge, IMO.