INTRODUCTION
FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING is an important paradigm of programming that looks back on a long history. The subject has always been very relevant to people who teach others how to program — the clean and logical concepts of functional programming lend themselves especially well to teaching. Certain industries that use computers and self-written programs heavily have also found functional programming to be the most productive approach for their purposes. However, for many of the “mainstream” software manufacturers, functional programming has long held an air of the academic and they widely chose to use approaches with an imperative heritage, like object orientation.
In recent years, more and more functional elements have been included in imperative languages on the .NET platform, and with Visual Studio 2010, F# has been included — the first hybrid functional language in the box with Microsoft’s mainstream development platform. Even more than the functional features that have been introduced to C# and VB.NET, this shows a commitment on Microsoft’s side.
WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR
The topic of functional programming in C# can be seen from two different angles. On the .NET platform there are many experienced developers and development teams, who have been using C# or VB.NET, or in some cases C++, to create software for the platform. If you have that sort of experience, there are lots of reasons you should be looking into functional programming: it’s a clean and easily maintainable ...
