F# for Scientists

F# for Scientists

by Jon Harrop
Released August 2008
Publisher(s): Wiley-Interscience
ISBN: 9780470242117

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Book description

This work strikes a balance between the pure functional aspects of F# and the object-oriented and imperative features that make it so useful in practice, enable .NET integration, and make large-scale data processing possible.

—Thore Graepel, PhD, Researcher, Microsoft Research Ltd.

Over the next five years, F# is expected to become one of the world's most popular functional programming languages for scientists of all disciplines working on the Windows platform. F# is free and, unlike MATLAB® and other software with numerical/scientific origins, is a full-fledged programming language.

Developed in consultation with Don Syme of Microsoft Research Ltd.—who wrote the language—F# for Scientists explains and demonstrates the powerful features of this important new programming language. The book assumes no prior experience and guides the reader from the basics of computer programming to the implementation of state-of-the-art algorithms.

F# for Scientists begins with coverage of introductory material in the areas of functional programming, .NET, and scientific computing, and goes on to explore:

  • Program structure

  • Optimization

  • Data structures

  • Libraries

  • Numerical analysis

  • Databases

  • Input and output

  • Interoperability

  • Visualization

Screenshots of development using Visual Studio are used to illustrate compilation, debugging, and interactive use, while complete examples of a few whole programs are included to give readers a complete view of F#'s capabilities.

Written in a clear and concise style, F# for Scientists is well suited for researchers, scientists, and developers who want to program under the Windows platform. It also serves as an ideal supplemental text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students with a background in science or engineering.

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
  2. Foreword
  3. Preface
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. List of Figures
  6. List of Tables
  7. Acronyms
  8. 1. INTRODUCTION
    1. 1.1. PROGRAMMING GUIDELINES
    2. 1.2. A BRIEF HISTORY OF F#
    3. 1.3. BENEFITS OF F#
    4. 1.4. INTRODUCING F#
      1. 1.4.1. Language overview
        1. 1.4.1.1. Basic types
        2. 1.4.1.2. Variables and functions
        3. 1.4.1.3. Product types: tuples and records
        4. 1.4.1.4. Sum types: variants
        5. 1.4.1.5. Generics
        6. 1.4.1.6. Lists and arrays
        7. 1.4.1.7. The if expression
        8. 1.4.1.8. More about functions
      2. 1.4.2. Pattern matching
        1. 1.4.2.1. Variables in patterns
        2. 1.4.2.2. Named subpatterns
        3. 1.4.2.3. Guarded patterns
        4. 1.4.2.4. Or patterns
        5. 1.4.2.5. Erroneous patterns
        6. 1.4.2.6. Good Style
        7. 1.4.2.7. Parallel pattern matching
        8. 1.4.2.8. Active patterns
      3. 1.4.3. Equality
      4. 1.4.4. Sequence expressions
      5. 1.4.5. Exceptions
    5. 1.5. IMPERATIVE PROGRAMMING
    6. 1.6. FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING
      1. 1.6.1. Immutability
      2. 1.6.2. Recursion
      3. 1.6.3. Curried functions
      4. 1.6.4. Higher-order functions
  9. 2. PROGRAM STRUCTURE
    1. 2.1. NESTING
    2. 2.2. FACTORING
      1. 2.2.1. Factoring out common subexpressions
      2. 2.2.2. Factoring out higher-order functions
    3. 2.3. Modules
    4. 2.4. OBJECTS
      1. 2.4.1. Augmentations
        1. 2.4.1.1. Getters and Setters
        2. 2.4.1.2. Indexing
        3. 2.4.1.3. Operator Overloading
      2. 2.4.2. Classes
        1. 2.4.2.1. Explicit constructors
        2. 2.4.2.2. Implicit Constructor
        3. 2.4.2.3. Run-time type testing
        4. 2.4.2.4. Boxing
    5. 2.5. FUNCTIONAL DESIGN PATTERNS
      1. 2.5.1. Combinators
      2. 2.5.2. Maps and folds
    6. 2.6. F# DEVELOPMENT
      1. 2.6.1. Creating an F# project
      2. 2.6.2. Building executabies
      3. 2.6.3. Debugging
      4. 2.6.4. Interactive mode
        1. 2.6.4.1. Double semicolons
        2. 2.6.4.2. Loading F# modules
        3. 2.6.4.3. Pretty printing
      5. 2.6.5. C# interoperability
  10. 3. DATA STRUCTURES
    1. 3.1. ALGORITHMIC COMPLEXITY
      1. 3.1.1. Primitive operations
      2. 3.1.2. Complexity
        1. 3.1.2.1. Asymptotic complexity
    2. 3.2. ARRAYS
      1. 3.2.1. Array literals
      2. 3.2.2. Array indexing
      3. 3.2.3. Array concatenation
      4. 3.2.4. Aliasing
      5. 3.2.5. Subarrays
      6. 3.2.6. Creation
      7. 3.2.7. Iteration
      8. 3.2.8. Map
      9. 3.2.9. Folds
      10. 3.2.10. Sorting
      11. 3.2.11. Pattern matching
    3. 3.3. LISTS
      1. 3.3.1. Sorting
      2. 3.3.2. Searching
        1. 3.3.2.1. Membership
        2. 3.3.2.2. Predicate
        3. 3.3.2.3. Association lists
      3. 3.3.3. Filtering
      4. 3.3.4. Maps and folds
      5. 3.3.5. Pattern matching
    4. 3.4. SETS
      1. 3.4.1. Creation
      2. 3.4.2. Insertion
      3. 3.4.3. Cardinality
      4. 3.4.4. Set-theoretic operations
      5. 3.4.5. Comparison
    5. 3.5. HASH TABLES
      1. 3.5.1. Creation
      2. 3.5.2. Searching
      3. 3.5.3. Insertion, replacement and removal
      4. 3.5.4. Higher-order functions
    6. 3.6. MAPS
      1. 3.6.1. Creation
      2. 3.6.2. Searching
      3. 3.6.3. Higher-order functions
    7. 3.7. CHOOSING A DATA STRUCTURE
    8. 3.8. Sequences
    9. 3.9. Heterogeneous Containers
    10. 3.10. TREES
      1. 3.10.1. Balanced trees
      2. 3.10.2. Unbalanced trees
        1. 3.10.2.1. Array-based force computation
        2. 3.10.2.2. Tree-based force computation
        3. 3.10.2.3. Performance comparison
      3. 3.10.3. Abstract syntax trees
        1. 3.10.3.1. Definition
        2. 3.10.3.2. Easier construction
        3. 3.10.3.3. Evaluating expressions
        4. 3.10.3.4. Term rewriting
  11. 4. NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
    1. 4.1. NUMBER REPRESENTATION
      1. 4.1.1. Machine-precision integers
      2. 4.1.2. Machine-precision floating-point numbers
    2. 4.2. ALGEBRA
    3. 4.3. INTERPOLATION
    4. 4.4. QUADRATIC SOLUTIONS
    5. 4.5. MEAN AND VARIANCE
    6. 4.6. OTHER FORMS OF ARITHMETIC
      1. 4.6.1. Arbitrary-precision integer arithmetic
      2. 4.6.2. Arbitrary-precision rational arithmetic
      3. 4.6.3. Adaptive precision
  12. 5. INPUT AND OUTPUT
    1. 5.1. PRINTING
      1. 5.1.1. Generating strings
    2. 5.2. GENERIC PRINTING
    3. 5.3. READING FROM AND WRITING TO FILES
    4. 5.4. SERIALIZATION
    5. 5.5. LEXING AND PARSING
      1. 5.5.1. Lexing
        1. 5.5.1.1. Using
        2. 5.5.1.2. Using
      2. 5.5.2. Parsing
  13. 6. SIMPLE EXAMPLES
    1. 6.1. FUNCTIONAL
      1. 6.1.1. Nest
      2. 6.1.2. Fixed point
      3. 6.1.3. Within
      4. 6.1.4. Memoize
        1. 6.1.4.1. Simple memoization
        2. 6.1.4.2. Recursive memoization
        3. 6.1.4.3. Dynamic programming
      5. 6.1.5. Binary search
    2. 6.2. NUMERICAL
      1. 6.2.1. Heaviside step
      2. 6.2.2. Kronecker δ-function
      3. 6.2.3. Gaussian
      4. 6.2.4. Binomial coefficients
      5. 6.2.5. Root finding
      6. 6.2.6. Grad
      7. 6.2.7. Function minimization
      8. 6.2.8. Gamma function
      9. 6.2.9. Discrete wavelet transform
    3. 6.3. STRING RELATED
      1. 6.3.1. Transcribing DNA
      2. 6.3.2. Word frequency
    4. 6.4. LIST RELATED
      1. 6.4.1. count
      2. 6.4.2. positions
      3. 6.4.3. fold_to
      4. 6.4.4. insert
      5. 6.4.5. chop
      6. 6.4.6. dice
      7. 6.4.7. apply_at
      8. 6.4.8. sub
      9. 6.4.9. extract
      10. 6.4.10. shuffle
      11. 6.4.11. transpose
      12. 6.4.12. combinations
      13. 6.4.13. distribute
      14. 6.4.14. permute
      15. 6.4.15. Power set
    5. 6.5. ARRAY RELATED
      1. 6.5.1. rotate
      2. 6.5.2. swap
      3. 6.5.3. except
      4. 6.5.4. shuffle
    6. 6.6. HIGHER-ORDER FUNCTIONS
      1. 6.6.1. Tuple related
      2. 6.6.2. Generalized products
  14. 7. VISUALIZATION
    1. 7.1. WINDOWS FORMS
      1. 7.1.1. FORMS
      2. 7.1.2. Controls
      3. 7.1.3. Events
      4. 7.1.4. Bitmaps
      5. 7.1.5. Example: Cellular automata
      6. 7.1.6. Running an application
    2. 7.2. MANAGED DIRECTX
      1. 7.2.1. Handling DirectX devices
      2. 7.2.2. Programmatic rendering
        1. 7.2.2.1. Buffers
        2. 7.2.2.2. Vectors and vertices
        3. 7.2.2.3. Orthographic projection
        4. 7.2.2.4. Perspective projection
        5. 7.2.2.5. Rendering primitives
      3. 7.2.3. Rendering an icosahedron
      4. 7.2.4. Declarative rendering
        1. 7.2.4.1. Scene graph
        2. 7.2.4.2. Rendering a scene graph
      5. 7.2.5. Spawning visualizations from the F# interactive mode
    3. 7.3. TESSELATING OBJECTS INTO TRIANGLES
      1. 7.3.1. Spheres
      2. 7.3.2. 3D function plotting
  15. 8. OPTIMIZATION
    1. 8.1. TIMING
      1. 8.1.1. Absolute time
      2. 8.1.2. CPU time
      3. 8.1.3. Looping
      4. 8.1.4. Example timing
    2. 8.2. PROFILING
      1. 8.2.1. 8-queens problem
    3. 8.3. ALGORITHMIC OPTIMIZATIONS
    4. 8.4. LOWER-LEVEL OPTIMIZATIONS
      1. 8.4.1. Benchmarking data structures
      2. 8.4.2. Compiler flags
      3. 8.4.3. Tail-recursion
      4. 8.4.4. Avoiding allocation
        1. 8.4.4.1. Deforesting
        2. 8.4.4.2. Avoid copying
      5. 8.4.5. Terminating early
      6. 8.4.6. Avoiding higher-order functions
      7. 8.4.7. Use mutable
      8. 8.4.8. Specialized functions
      9. 8.4.9. Unboxing data structures
      10. 8.4.10. Eliminate needless closures
      11. 8.4.11. Inlining
      12. 8.4.12. Serializing
  16. 9. LIBRARIES
    1. 9.1. LOADING .NET LIBRARIES
    2. 9.2. CHARTING AND GRAPHING
    3. 9.3. THREADS
      1. 9.3.1. Thread safety
      2. 9.3.2. Basic use
      3. 9.3.3. Locks
      4. 9.3.4. The thread pool
      5. 9.3.5. Asynchronous delegates
      6. 9.3.6. Background threads
    4. 9.4. RANDOM NUMBERS
    5. 9.5. REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
    6. 9.6. VECTORS AND MATRICES
    7. 9.7. DOWNLOADING FROM THE WEB
    8. 9.8. COMPRESSION
    9. 9.9. HANDLING XML
      1. 9.9.1. Reading
      2. 9.9.2. Writing
      3. 9.9.3. Declarative representation
    10. 9.10. CALLING NATIVE LIBRARIES
    11. 9.11. FOURIER TRANSFORM
      1. 9.11.1. Native-code bindings
      2. 9.11.2. Interface in F#
      3. 9.11.3. Pretty printing complex numbers
      4. 9.11.4. Example use
    12. 9.12. METAPROGRAMMING
      1. 9.12.1. Emitting IL code
      2. 9.12.2. Compiling with LINQ
  17. 10. DATABASES
    1. 10.1. PROTEIN DATA BANK
      1. 10.1.1. Interrogating the PDB
      2. 10.1.2. Pretty printing XML in F# interactive sessions
      3. 10.1.3. Deconstructing XML using active patterns
      4. 10.1.4. Visualization in a GUI
    2. 10.2. WEB SERVICES
      1. 10.2.1. US temperature by zip code
      2. 10.2.2. Interrogating the NCBI
        1. 10.2.2.1. ESearch
        2. 10.2.2.2. EFetch utility
    3. 10.3. RELATIONAL DATABASES
      1. 10.3.1. Connection to a database
      2. 10.3.2. Executing SQL statements
      3. 10.3.3. Evaluating SQL expressions
      4. 10.3.4. Interrogating the database programmatically
      5. 10.3.5. Filling the database from a data structure
      6. 10.3.6. Visualizing the result
      7. 10.3.7. Cleaning up
  18. 11. INTEROPERABILITY
    1. 11.1. EXCEL
      1. 11.1.1. Referencing the Excel interface
      2. 11.1.2. Loading an existing spreadsheet
      3. 11.1.3. Creating a new spreadsheet
      4. 11.1.4. Referring to a worksheet
      5. 11.1.5. Writing cell values into a worksheet
      6. 11.1.6. Reading cell values from a worksheet
    2. 11.2. MATLAB
      1. 11.2.1. Creating a .NET interface from a COM interface
      2. 11.2.2. Using the interface
      3. 11.2.3. Remote execution of MATLAB commands
      4. 11.2.4. Reading and writing MATLAB variables
    3. 11.3. MATHEMATICA
      1. 11.3.1. Using .NET-link
      2. 11.3.2. Example
  19. 12. COMPLETE EXAMPLES
    1. 12.1. FAST FOURIER TRANSFORM
      1. 12.1.1. Discrete Fourier transform
      2. 12.1.2. Danielson-Lanczos algorithm
      3. 12.1.3. Bluestein's convolution algorithm
      4. 12.1.4. Testing and performance
    2. 12.2. SEMI-CIRCLE LAW
      1. 12.2.1. Eigenvalue computation
      2. 12.2.2. Injecting results into Excel
      3. 12.2.3. Results
    3. 12.3. FINDING N TH-NEAREST NEIGHBORS
      1. 12.3.1. Formulation
      2. 12.3.2. Representing an atomic configuration
      3. 12.3.3. Parser
      4. 12.3.4. Lexer
      5. 12.3.5. Main program
      6. 12.3.6. Visualization
    4. 12.4. LOGISTIC MAP
    5. 12.5. REAL-TIME PARTICLE DYNAMICS
  20. A. Troubleshooting
    1. A.1. Value Restriction
    2. A.2. MUTABLE ARRAY CONTENTS
    3. A.3. NEGATIVE LITERALS
    4. A.4. ACCIDENTAL CAPTURE
    5. A.5. LOCAL AND NON-LOCAL VARIABLE DEFINITIONS
    6. A.6. MERGING LINES
    7. A.7. APPLICATIONS THAT DO NOT DIE
    8. A.8. BEWARE OF "IT"
  21. Glossary
  22. Bibliography

Product information

  • Title: F# for Scientists
  • Author(s): Jon Harrop
  • Release date: August 2008
  • Publisher(s): Wiley-Interscience
  • ISBN: 9780470242117