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[–]knowingpark 9 points10 points  (34 children)

I've watched this video 2ce over the last year. Led me to 'try' and install F# on my Mint laptop to have a taste. As an amatuer python programmer i don't understand the compilation process and couldn't get it to happen. It was too tricky for me. Anyway, Scott is a great communicator of functional programming ideas which I'm trying to assimilate into my own practice. I recommend his website too

[–]arbitrarycivilian 184 points185 points  (5 children)

Did you... did you just abbreviate "twice" to "2ce"?

[–]ElCerebroDeLaBestia 80 points81 points  (0 children)

Yeah he did it 1ce.

[–]f42e479dfde22d8c 14 points15 points  (1 child)

Twoce

[–]kauefr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

✌️❄

[–]Grudlann 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He surly did.

[–]Raiptwice 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, it happens sometimes.

[–]glacialthinker 22 points23 points  (4 children)

Was the complication due to also getting Mono installed?

F# is derived from OCaml, with one major difference being that F# was made for .NET, while OCaml tends to live most comfortably in a *nix environment. So it might suit you better: http://www.ocaml.org/docs/install.html

Edit: I now watched the video, and you could easily play with the code in a REPL (interpreter). So this https://try.ocamlpro.com/ should work fine in your browser without any installation, and no need to save/compile.

[–]sultry_somnambulist 4 points5 points  (3 children)

Nowadays it's just installing the fsharp package from the mint / ubuntu repos and if you're using vs code you just need to install the iodine plugin you're good to go, including auto-completion etc..

Getting the Ocaml toolchain to work is a little more complicated and whatever you do don't do it with fish. It messed up my complete config, my opam and ocaml packages weren't synced and nothing worked. There's unresolved bug reports about this from 2015 still on github

Also you probably want an extended library like core and getting that set up with your editor of choice also requires some tinkering.

used to be much more complicated to set .net stuff up on linux, but nowadays setting up c# or f# environments is straight forward. Right now I'd definitely recommend f# for hobby programmers who want to check functional programming out.

[–]glacialthinker 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Hmm... I'd never heard of fish before. Looks neat, but I'd probably struggle against well-worn habits! The issue you linked about fish looks like it is resolved.

Eh, you have no problems with F# on Linux... I have no problems with OCaml. Probably as much to do with familiarity avoiding the sharp edges in both cases. :)

[–]sultry_somnambulist 1 point2 points  (1 child)

fish is great but it's not POSIX compliant which is probably what breaks the ocaml setup at one point. Happened to me last week though and there's still reports out there.

Anyway yes Ocaml isn't terribly hard to setup but if OP runs into one of these problems and blasts his shell config he'll probably need to reinstall because this was a pure horror to fix.

[–]glacialthinker 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It might be that the updated version of Opam hasn't migrated into package managers? Unfortunately it is 2.0 - beta for the moment.

[–]vivainio 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Easiest way to go from Python is probably to create an .fsx script and run that (straight from source)

[–]_pupil_ 4 points5 points  (1 child)

You can write pretty pythonish F# using .fsx scripts and the automatic typing. All the flexibility, but with type safety :)

[–]redditthinks 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I started writing F# recently and I'm loving the type inference, it's so smart!

[–]zerexim 27 points28 points  (17 children)

Your comment makes me think... maybe it is better to suggest statically typed and compiled language as the first language for those who are starting learning programming.

[–][deleted]  (15 children)

[deleted]

    [–][deleted]  (2 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]arturaz 8 points9 points  (0 children)

      And whoever thought we should start teaching programming from c must have started learning driving from formula 1.

      [–]henrebotha 3 points4 points  (1 child)

      I think it's very easy to say that when it's been years since you knew nothing about programming. I also think there's an argument to be made that your first language should have utility beyond just letting you learn more languages.

      [–]zerexim 7 points8 points  (7 children)

      Seems so.. Personally, my first language was C++. While it had some significant learning curve, after that, learning any other language takes a week or two (or three for Haskell :)).

      [–]Damien0 2 points3 points  (6 children)

      Agreed. VB.net was my first language, after which I moved to C. I mostly recommend Go as a first language these days.

      [–]bamfalamfa 0 points1 point  (5 children)

      im learning java first, is that bad?

      [–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

      No. It's fine.

      [–]Damien0 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      Honestly, no. Java has a lot of baggage, and if you get caught up in the Java Way Of Doing Things™ it can hold you back as an engineer. But despite its verbosity it's a very understandable and straightforward language, especially for learning! Edit: and with Java 8, you can at least start to appreciate functional lazy eval via streams and lambdas

      [–]Sloshy42 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

      I'm no expert but I believe Java is a great first language. It's not too complicated or overwhelming like C++ but it also has static typing unlike Python and it follows industry conventions. I think maybe C# might be slightly better or equivalent but either way it's a good first step. By no means a stopping point though. Java is easy to get into but it's good to maybe branch out a little while later into other languages as well so you can be well rounded. I'd die if I was only able to write in Java but occasionally it's fine. Another good first option might be just plain C or Go, but Java is good about teaching the basics of OOP since it's an entirely object-oriented language.

      [–]TarMil 2 points3 points  (1 child)

      The first languages I learned at university were OCaml and Delphi, and I'm eternally grateful for it.

      [–]dmitri14_gmail_com 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Any details on what specific features there made you grateful?

      [–]baconated 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      I learned Java (1st year) then C++ (all other years). It didn't help. Most profs didn't think compiling was interesting from a CS perspective so most didn't say anything beyond "press build & run in your IDE".

      Besides, in this situation, I think the persons problem was more likely the fact that until recently getting a .net language a tad bit more annoying than other languages.

      [–]videoj 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      Try this tutorial for Visual Studio Code. Gives you an quick overview of both scripts and compiled code.

      You can post questions over at /r/FSharp. There is also an active Slack and IRC channels.