Building Web, Cloud, and Mobile Solutions with F#

Appendix A. Useful Tools and Libraries

This appendix takes a look at a few tools and libraries that can enhance your F# web, cloud, and mobile development experience.

FAKE (F# Make)

FAKE is a build tool similar to Make that allows you to automate a sequence of steps that you wish to have done during each build. The permutations of things you might include in the automated build script for a solution are endless, but at a minimum you will likely want to compile all projects and run unit tests.

FAKE is built in F# and the scripts you use to create the automated build process are also created in F#. I’ve used FAKE in projects such as FsUnit and found it to be very helpful! It’s also a great way to get F# “in the door” for any groups or organizations that may be hesitant about bringing in F#. You can find several examples for getting started with FAKE here.

Note

FAKE leverages MSBuild, so in addition to the power of F# and the various custom plug-ins that FAKE provides, you can take advantage of everything that MSBuild has to offer.

NuGet

I’ve talked about NuGet at multiple points throughout the book; however, I haven’t provided much information about how to use NuGet. If NuGet is new to you, the best way to get started with it is to visit the NuGet website and read the documentation. A high-level overview is also provided in the next section.

Basic Usage

There are two primary ways to use NuGet from Visual Studio. One is through the Package Manager Console. Another is through the Manage NuGet ...