I do love F#, but its compiler is a rusty set of monkey bars. It's somehow single pass, meaning the type checker will struggle if you don't reorder certain expressions - but also dog slow, especially for `inline` definitions (which work more like templates or hygienic macros than .net generics, and are far more powerful.) File order matters, bafflingly! Newer .net features like spans and ref structs are missing with no clear path to implementation. Doing moderately clever things can cause the compiler to throw weird, opaque, internal errors. F# is built around immutability but there's no integration with the modern .net immutable collections.
It's clearly languishing and being kept alive by a skeleton crew, which is sad, because it deserves better, but I've used research prototypes less clunky than what ought to be a flagship.
There's more than a dozen - I should know. I've seen quite a few large systems built in it. Most of the time however it isn't well advertised (finance, insurance, etc).
- I don't think the compiler is actually that bad, and yes - inline definitions I think once you are going on the "templating route" are going to be slower. Spans and ref structs are there - I think the design of them is more intuitive actually - the C# "ref struct" at first glance sounds like an oxymoron to me.
- modern .net immutable collections - in testing these are significantly slower than some of the F# options especially when you go away from the standard lib and use some of the other collection libraries. The algorithms within the C# immutable libs were not as optimal for some common collection types. They didn't feel modern last time I used them and I was forced to switch to the F# ones and/or others in the F# ecosystem to get the performance I needed. Immutable code felt MUCH more idiomatic with F#.
- "Doing moderately clever things can cause the compiler to throw weird, opaque, internal errors" - happened with init fields for me; can't recall another time.
Don't mind the file order bit - I thought OCAml and a few other languages also do this. Apps still scale OK, and when I was coding in it got me out of a few spaghetti code issues as the code scaled up to about the 500,000+ LOC mark.
However I do agree with you on it being kept alive by skeleton crew - I think the creators and tooling staff have moved on to the next big thing (AI and specifically Github Copilot). Which the way things are moving will raise some interesting questions about all coding languages in general potentially.
sterlind|11 months ago
I do love F#, but its compiler is a rusty set of monkey bars. It's somehow single pass, meaning the type checker will struggle if you don't reorder certain expressions - but also dog slow, especially for `inline` definitions (which work more like templates or hygienic macros than .net generics, and are far more powerful.) File order matters, bafflingly! Newer .net features like spans and ref structs are missing with no clear path to implementation. Doing moderately clever things can cause the compiler to throw weird, opaque, internal errors. F# is built around immutability but there's no integration with the modern .net immutable collections.
It's clearly languishing and being kept alive by a skeleton crew, which is sad, because it deserves better, but I've used research prototypes less clunky than what ought to be a flagship.
throw234234234|11 months ago
- I don't think the compiler is actually that bad, and yes - inline definitions I think once you are going on the "templating route" are going to be slower. Spans and ref structs are there - I think the design of them is more intuitive actually - the C# "ref struct" at first glance sounds like an oxymoron to me.
- modern .net immutable collections - in testing these are significantly slower than some of the F# options especially when you go away from the standard lib and use some of the other collection libraries. The algorithms within the C# immutable libs were not as optimal for some common collection types. They didn't feel modern last time I used them and I was forced to switch to the F# ones and/or others in the F# ecosystem to get the performance I needed. Immutable code felt MUCH more idiomatic with F#.
- "Doing moderately clever things can cause the compiler to throw weird, opaque, internal errors" - happened with init fields for me; can't recall another time.
Don't mind the file order bit - I thought OCAml and a few other languages also do this. Apps still scale OK, and when I was coding in it got me out of a few spaghetti code issues as the code scaled up to about the 500,000+ LOC mark.
However I do agree with you on it being kept alive by skeleton crew - I think the creators and tooling staff have moved on to the next big thing (AI and specifically Github Copilot). Which the way things are moving will raise some interesting questions about all coding languages in general potentially.
debugnik|11 months ago
Huh? They're already implemented! It took years and they've still got some rough edges, yes, but they've been implemented for a few years now.
Agreed with the rest, though. As much as I love working with F#, I've jumped ship.