book

F# for Scientists

Name: F# for Scientists
Author: Jon Harrop
ISBN: 9780470242117

by Jon Harrop

August 2008

Intermediate to advanced

368 pages

7h 54m

English

Wiley-Interscience

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Copyright
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acronyms
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. PROGRAMMING GUIDELINES1.2. A BRIEF HISTORY OF F#1.3. BENEFITS OF F#1.4. INTRODUCING F#1.4.1. Language overview1.4.1.1. Basic types1.4.1.2. Variables and functions1.4.1.3. Product types: tuples and records1.4.1.4. Sum types: variants1.4.1.5. Generics1.4.1.6. Lists and arrays1.4.1.7. The if expression1.4.1.8. More about functions1.4.2. Pattern matching1.4.2.1. Variables in patterns1.4.2.2. Named subpatterns1.4.2.3. Guarded patterns1.4.2.4. Or patterns1.4.2.5. Erroneous patterns1.4.2.6. Good Style1.4.2.7. Parallel pattern matching1.4.2.8. Active patterns1.4.3. Equality1.4.4. Sequence expressions1.4.5. Exceptions1.5. IMPERATIVE PROGRAMMING1.6. FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING1.6.1. Immutability1.6.2. Recursion1.6.3. Curried functions1.6.4. Higher-order functions
2. PROGRAM STRUCTURE
2.1. NESTING2.2. FACTORING2.2.1. Factoring out common subexpressions2.2.2. Factoring out higher-order functions2.3. Modules2.4. OBJECTS2.4.1. Augmentations2.4.1.1. Getters and Setters2.4.1.2. Indexing2.4.1.3. Operator Overloading2.4.2. Classes2.4.2.1. Explicit constructors2.4.2.2. Implicit Constructor2.4.2.3. Run-time type testing2.4.2.4. Boxing2.5. FUNCTIONAL DESIGN PATTERNS2.5.1. Combinators2.5.2. Maps and folds2.6. F# DEVELOPMENT2.6.1. Creating an F# project2.6.2. Building executabies2.6.3. Debugging2.6.4. Interactive mode2.6.4.1. Double semicolons2.6.4.2. Loading F# modules2.6.4.3. Pretty printing2.6.5. C# interoperability
3. DATA STRUCTURES
3.1. ALGORITHMIC COMPLEXITY3.1.1. Primitive operations3.1.2. Complexity3.1.2.1. Asymptotic complexity3.2. ARRAYS3.2.1. Array literals3.2.2. Array indexing3.2.3. Array concatenation3.2.4. Aliasing3.2.5. Subarrays3.2.6. Creation3.2.7. Iteration3.2.8. Map3.2.9. Folds3.2.10. Sorting3.2.11. Pattern matching3.3. LISTS3.3.1. Sorting3.3.2. Searching3.3.2.1. Membership3.3.2.2. Predicate3.3.2.3. Association lists3.3.3. Filtering3.3.4. Maps and folds3.3.5. Pattern matching3.4. SETS3.4.1. Creation3.4.2. Insertion3.4.3. Cardinality3.4.4. Set-theoretic operations3.4.5. Comparison3.5. HASH TABLES3.5.1. Creation3.5.2. Searching3.5.3. Insertion, replacement and removal3.5.4. Higher-order functions3.6. MAPS3.6.1. Creation3.6.2. Searching3.6.3. Higher-order functions3.7. CHOOSING A DATA STRUCTURE3.8. Sequences3.9. Heterogeneous Containers3.10. TREES3.10.1. Balanced trees3.10.2. Unbalanced trees3.10.2.1. Array-based force computation3.10.2.2. Tree-based force computation3.10.2.3. Performance comparison3.10.3. Abstract syntax trees3.10.3.1. Definition3.10.3.2. Easier construction3.10.3.3. Evaluating expressions3.10.3.4. Term rewriting

4. NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
4.1. NUMBER REPRESENTATION4.1.1. Machine-precision integers4.1.2. Machine-precision floating-point numbers4.2. ALGEBRA4.3. INTERPOLATION4.4. QUADRATIC SOLUTIONS4.5. MEAN AND VARIANCE4.6. OTHER FORMS OF ARITHMETIC4.6.1. Arbitrary-precision integer arithmetic4.6.2. Arbitrary-precision rational arithmetic4.6.3. Adaptive precision
5. INPUT AND OUTPUT
5.1. PRINTING5.1.1. Generating strings5.2. GENERIC PRINTING5.3. READING FROM AND WRITING TO FILES5.4. SERIALIZATION5.5. LEXING AND PARSING5.5.1. Lexing5.5.1.1. Using5.5.1.2. Using5.5.2. Parsing
6. SIMPLE EXAMPLES
6.1. FUNCTIONAL6.1.1. Nest6.1.2. Fixed point6.1.3. Within6.1.4. Memoize6.1.4.1. Simple memoization6.1.4.2. Recursive memoization6.1.4.3. Dynamic programming6.1.5. Binary search6.2. NUMERICAL6.2.1. Heaviside step6.2.2. Kronecker δ-function6.2.3. Gaussian6.2.4. Binomial coefficients6.2.5. Root finding6.2.6. Grad6.2.7. Function minimization6.2.8. Gamma function6.2.9. Discrete wavelet transform6.3. STRING RELATED6.3.1. Transcribing DNA6.3.2. Word frequency6.4. LIST RELATED6.4.1. count6.4.2. positions6.4.3. fold_to6.4.4. insert6.4.5. chop6.4.6. dice6.4.7. apply_at6.4.8. sub6.4.9. extract6.4.10. shuffle6.4.11. transpose6.4.12. combinations6.4.13. distribute6.4.14. permute6.4.15. Power set6.5. ARRAY RELATED6.5.1. rotate6.5.2. swap6.5.3. except6.5.4. shuffle6.6. HIGHER-ORDER FUNCTIONS6.6.1. Tuple related6.6.2. Generalized products
7. VISUALIZATION
7.1. WINDOWS FORMS7.1.1. FORMS7.1.2. Controls7.1.3. Events7.1.4. Bitmaps7.1.5. Example: Cellular automata7.1.6. Running an application7.2. MANAGED DIRECTX7.2.1. Handling DirectX devices7.2.2. Programmatic rendering7.2.2.1. Buffers7.2.2.2. Vectors and vertices7.2.2.3. Orthographic projection7.2.2.4. Perspective projection7.2.2.5. Rendering primitives7.2.3. Rendering an icosahedron7.2.4. Declarative rendering7.2.4.1. Scene graph7.2.4.2. Rendering a scene graph7.2.5. Spawning visualizations from the F# interactive mode7.3. TESSELATING OBJECTS INTO TRIANGLES7.3.1. Spheres7.3.2. 3D function plotting
8. OPTIMIZATION
8.1. TIMING8.1.1. Absolute time8.1.2. CPU time8.1.3. Looping8.1.4. Example timing8.2. PROFILING8.2.1. 8-queens problem8.3. ALGORITHMIC OPTIMIZATIONS8.4. LOWER-LEVEL OPTIMIZATIONS8.4.1. Benchmarking data structures8.4.2. Compiler flags8.4.3. Tail-recursion8.4.4. Avoiding allocation8.4.4.1. Deforesting8.4.4.2. Avoid copying8.4.5. Terminating early8.4.6. Avoiding higher-order functions8.4.7. Use mutable8.4.8. Specialized functions8.4.9. Unboxing data structures8.4.10. Eliminate needless closures8.4.11. Inlining8.4.12. Serializing
9. LIBRARIES
9.1. LOADING .NET LIBRARIES9.2. CHARTING AND GRAPHING9.3. THREADS9.3.1. Thread safety9.3.2. Basic use9.3.3. Locks9.3.4. The thread pool9.3.5. Asynchronous delegates9.3.6. Background threads9.4. RANDOM NUMBERS9.5. REGULAR EXPRESSIONS9.6. VECTORS AND MATRICES9.7. DOWNLOADING FROM THE WEB9.8. COMPRESSION9.9. HANDLING XML9.9.1. Reading9.9.2. Writing9.9.3. Declarative representation9.10. CALLING NATIVE LIBRARIES9.11. FOURIER TRANSFORM9.11.1. Native-code bindings9.11.2. Interface in F#9.11.3. Pretty printing complex numbers9.11.4. Example use9.12. METAPROGRAMMING9.12.1. Emitting IL code9.12.2. Compiling with LINQ
10. DATABASES
10.1. PROTEIN DATA BANK10.1.1. Interrogating the PDB10.1.2. Pretty printing XML in F# interactive sessions10.1.3. Deconstructing XML using active patterns10.1.4. Visualization in a GUI10.2. WEB SERVICES10.2.1. US temperature by zip code10.2.2. Interrogating the NCBI10.2.2.1. ESearch10.2.2.2. EFetch utility10.3. RELATIONAL DATABASES10.3.1. Connection to a database10.3.2. Executing SQL statements10.3.3. Evaluating SQL expressions10.3.4. Interrogating the database programmatically10.3.5. Filling the database from a data structure10.3.6. Visualizing the result10.3.7. Cleaning up
11. INTEROPERABILITY
11.1. EXCEL11.1.1. Referencing the Excel interface11.1.2. Loading an existing spreadsheet11.1.3. Creating a new spreadsheet11.1.4. Referring to a worksheet11.1.5. Writing cell values into a worksheet11.1.6. Reading cell values from a worksheet11.2. MATLAB11.2.1. Creating a .NET interface from a COM interface11.2.2. Using the interface11.2.3. Remote execution of MATLAB commands11.2.4. Reading and writing MATLAB variables11.3. MATHEMATICA11.3.1. Using .NET-link11.3.2. Example
12. COMPLETE EXAMPLES
12.1. FAST FOURIER TRANSFORM12.1.1. Discrete Fourier transform12.1.2. Danielson-Lanczos algorithm12.1.3. Bluestein's convolution algorithm12.1.4. Testing and performance12.2. SEMI-CIRCLE LAW12.2.1. Eigenvalue computation12.2.2. Injecting results into Excel12.2.3. Results12.3. FINDING N TH-NEAREST NEIGHBORS12.3.1. Formulation12.3.2. Representing an atomic configuration12.3.3. Parser12.3.4. Lexer12.3.5. Main program12.3.6. Visualization12.4. LOGISTIC MAP12.5. REAL-TIME PARTICLE DYNAMICS
A. Troubleshooting
A.1. Value RestrictionA.2. MUTABLE ARRAY CONTENTSA.3. NEGATIVE LITERALSA.4. ACCIDENTAL CAPTUREA.5. LOCAL AND NON-LOCAL VARIABLE DEFINITIONSA.6. MERGING LINESA.7. APPLICATIONS THAT DO NOT DIEA.8. BEWARE OF "IT"
Glossary
Bibliography

Overview

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.

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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