Beginning F# 4.0

Abstract

The first vote of thanks must go to the person who changed my professional life, and those of many others: Don Syme, the “father of F#.” Don does invaluable work in mentoring and encouraging me and the whole F# community. He sets a positive tone that is reflected in everything the community does. Huge thanks also to Fabio Claudio Ferracchiati, our technical reviewer, who has turned around reams of material in what seems like record time. Thanks also to the various employers who have supported me (admittedly with varying degrees of scepticism!) during my journey into F#. Extra special thanks to Edoardo Turelli and all the team at Adbrain, who have somehow unlocked the secret of having the right people working on the right problems in the right way. I’m deeply indebted to the many members of the F# community (both open source and within Microsoft) who have grown F# from an academic project to a thriving commercial and scientific language with a broad-based ecosystem. Every commit counts! I’d like to thank everyone at Apress who contributed to this book, notably James DeWolf, Melissa Maldonado, and Douglas Pundick. Thank you for your patience, professionalism, and support. Finally, huge appreciation to my wife, Val, for her unstinting support in everything I do, and to my children, Matt and Kate, both of them frankly more talented developers than I, for keeping me on my toes.