Wirawan Winarto

Just tried F# on Visual Studio Team System last night. It ran smoothly... so far.

The first thing I tried is a little Fibonacci code...

Then testing some simple codes below...

For you who came from object-oriented background, this language might looks like an alien language. But it is not that difficult to familiarize yourself with these syntaxes. Trust me.

If you want to have a taste of F# just follow these easy steps :

1. Remove any previously installed version of Microsoft Research F#.
2. Install Microsoft Visual Studio. (I tried it on Team System 2008)
3. Install Microsoft Research F#. You can download it here.
4. After all steps above are done. Open your Visual Studio.
5. Choose Tools, then Add-In Manager.
6. Check "F# Interactive for Visual Studio" check-box.
7. Try it, click New Projects >> Other Project Types >> F# Projects.
8. Have fun!

Just want you to know, as Mr. Somasegar has stated earlier here, F# will be the first class citizen of .NET in the future. That means F# will get the same support as C#, VB .NET, and C++. F# itself is actually a multi-paradigm programming language. It supports object-oriented programming as well, but it was designed mainly for functional programming.

Why is functional programming cool?
I will write that later because I have to prepare for my speech tomorrow.

I hope it is not too late to inform this. Since I have no time for blogging this month.

Pimnas IT was held on Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga at October 29 - November 2, 2007. One of its categories is called LPIKM (Lomba Produk Inovasi dan Kreativitas Mahasiswa). In the category, Team A3 (Amel, Ario, and Ali), which was representing STT Telkom, delivered a project named UCIL that means a programming language simulator "Untuk Anak Kecil". Much like Zeddy's AYU, its syntax is also based on Bahasa Indonesia. (although I think it is not a fair comparison, because AYU is far more complex and UCIL strong point is on its animation).

The most interesting point of UCIL is that it was developed on .NET 3.0 and powered by Microsoft Silverlight. Those technologies that I guess were fairly foreign to the judges.

After presenting their product in front of the judges, Team A3 was finally announced as the winner and awarded with Rp 7.500.000. Just want you to know, nearly all teams participating there were using Java, Team A3 was the only one who used .NET.

The news can be seen here.

I have been introducing Microsoft technologies for about three months here and Windows Presentation Foundation gains much attention from students of STT Telkom. Many students have changed their interests from Flash to Silverlight, from Java to .NET, etc. Don't get me wrong. I never force them to use Microsoft technologies, I only give them alternative. *peace*

At least, I think I have done my job as an evangelist.