Book Image

F# 4.0 Design Patterns

By : Gene Belitski
Book Image

F# 4.0 Design Patterns

By: Gene Belitski

Overview of this book

Following design patterns is a well-known approach to writing better programs that captures and reuses high-level abstractions that are common in many applications. This book will encourage you to develop an idiomatic F# coding skillset by fully embracing the functional-first F# paradigm. It will also help you harness this powerful instrument to write succinct, bug-free, and cross-platform code. F# 4.0 Design Patterns will start off by helping you develop a functional way of thinking. We will show you how beneficial the functional-first paradigm is and how to use it to get the optimum results. The book will help you acquire the practical knowledge of the main functional design patterns, the relationship of which with the traditional Gang of Four set is not straightforward. We will take you through pattern matching, immutable data types, and sequences in F#. We will also uncover advanced functional patterns, look at polymorphic functions, typical data crunching techniques, adjusting code through augmentation, and generalization. Lastly, we will take a look at the advanced techniques to equip you with everything you need to write flawless code.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
F# 4.0 Design Patterns
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgements
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Chapter 3.  Basic Functions

In this chapter, I'll cover the core element of the program code built with the functional paradigm, that is, function. The notion of a function is ubiquitous indeed. In the world around us, it may mean plenty of things, from purpose of something to dependency and to work in a certain manner. But here, I will consider it through the prism of computer programming, where a function generally means a method of computing results based on inputs. This examination is going to include the following:

  • The notion of a function, the function definition and type signature, pure functions, referential transparency, and side effects

  • Function parameters and arguments: a special type unit, the parameter number and type, the return value and type, currying, partial function application

  • Higher-order functions, functions as arguments and return values, anonymous functions, functions as data type constituents, and functions as interfaces

  • Closures, mutable values, and reference cells...