F# - Resources for learning it from scratch

Question

I appreciate there are a few posts out there, asking about F# tutorials/learning resources, but so many of the questions (and answers) assume a somewhat established knowledge or experience in C# or programming generally.

While I HAVE engaged in some programming, it's been very bitty and over many years. What I'm looking for is an F# tutorial, or series of tutorials, that walks you through from the very basics (a "complete" program that prints "Hello World!"), and progresses naturally while still showing you the complete solution. Most resources I've found cut out most things and just say "this is how you'd do it in C#, and this is now F#", leaving out other elements that complete the solution to the problem.

EDIT: I found the free course on F Sharp TV (udemy course), but didn't like how it was always exploiting F# Interactive to demo the language, as opposed to building an actually complete application.

Answer 1

I am very new to F#. I just started picking it up this month and I have really enjoyed it so far!

I can really relate to your question because every book or tutorial I've found assumed a lot more knowledge than I had. I would open them up start reading and then 3...2...1...and I was completely lost.

I'm sure once I am better at the language the references that are usually listed will be obviously superior to what I'm about to recommend.

One book I've enjoyed is "Functional Programming Using F#". It starts from the very, very basics and provides information about the small things in F# that I otherwise would have missed. The best part are the exercises at the end of the chapters, because someone went through all of them and posted answers here: [1]. So you can struggle through the exercises and then get an idea of how someone else approached the problem! The main drawback of this book is that the examples can be math heavy at times.

The second book I've used is called "Friendly F#". I really have never seen it linked or talked about, but I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I have found the approach the author takes to be rather novel. Instead of showing me how to implement the Fibonacci sequence in F# for the bajillionth time the author starts with projects! Real projects where you can actually visualize things! For example, in the first chapter you create an F# script where you visualize a ball bouncing in a box acted on by gravity! I know real coders are probably more worried about the esoteric features of the language but as someone starting out it was super motivating to actually be able to visualize something and more importantly to have something to show to my wife so she won't think I'm just wasting hours doing nothing. 😁

The last thing I'll recommend is Excercism. It's a great website where the tutors give great feedback. The only drawback is that you need to have somewhat of an idea of what the language can do. For me, I wasted countless hours trying to solve one of the problems only to realize that there is something called Seq.zip which would have solved the problem instantly. So, I recommend sitting down with a problem thinking hard on it for an hour and then googling "fsharp excercism solutions insert problem name here". Luckily, you can navigate directly to the solutions page and go through hundreds of solutions that other folks came up with. That's how I learned forever what Seq.zip is.

EDIT:

I also wanted to add this video [2]. It's not going to teach you all you need to know about F# in one video. However, it will give you a great overview of the language so while you are learning it in more depth you have an idea of what the language is capable of.

I hope this helps!!

[1] - https://github.com/TorbenRahbekKoch/Functional-Programming-Using-FSharp

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7eNDJN758U

Answer 2

As mentioned in the comments, some might think this answer can be seen as opinion motivated. I feel that those resources could be a good entry point to learning more about the language.

1. Reference: sachabarbs.wordpress.com/1406-2
2. Reference en.wikibooks.org/wiki/F_Sharp_Programming

Bonus: Getting started with F# in the cloud with Azure, take a peek at this awesome reference! Reference: Getting started with F# with Azure Notebooks

Answer 3

I would recommend first fsharpforfunandprofit.com - clearly a big starting point. You have the complete. This is a great section to "thibk functionally". https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/series/thinking-functionally.html When you get used to the language (a little bit), I would recommend "Stylish F#" . It is a very recent well written book on good practices for beginners (but who can write a bit of F#). Really liked it.