Malcolm: On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 8:53 AM, Malcolm Greene <[email protected]> wrote: > Bob, > > Thanks for your thoughtful response.
Any time. :) > F# sounds interesting, but I work at a software firm where we need to > ship commercial products. I'm not convinced that F# is a commercial > product that will be supported by MS long term. Well, not to put too fine a point on it, I bet it has a shelf life beyond 2014. :) I expect F# to find a solid niche in computational finance and scientific or computationally intensive and/or distributed applications. But don't underestimate it's potential in shrink wrapped application development either. F# (and it's immediate parent, Ocaml) is an important link to the future of programming languages, and a commercial grade language, right now. I have no doubt, after what I have built with it, that it is industrial strength. On the JVM, I'd say the same about Scala, I'm just not confident of the JVM's future at all now that Oracle owns it and Java's inventor stomped off in a huff shortly after being acquired. > Python may not be > perfect, but so far its proven incredibly robust in the environments in > which we've tested. There's a thriving community behind it and a > well-thought out road map for the future. I feel very secure that Python > is not going to disappear at the whim of a large corporation. Just don't let Guido die or retire... or be acquired by Oracle, which could mean the same thing. :) Actually Python is a fine language, which I agree is stable at this point, and little prospect of immanent doom, short of Guido being abducted by aliens. ;0) I expect languages like Python to (continue to) adopt more features like lambdas and list comprehensions in response to evolutionary pressure from languages like F#. > > Mono appears to be (much) further along than I thought. Has any of the > missing compatibility support proven a problem for you? > http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility Some, but I see Mono closing a lot of gaps. I was stunned when I was so easily able to get 1.9.9.9 of F# working on Ubuntu, within 5 minutes. I know there are some library issues still but the last time I tried a year or two ago I got seg faults left and right. I think it's important for people who believe in open source to support Mono and Portable.NET and other initiatives to port the CLR to non-windows platforms. Do check out Boo if you're into Python, I think you'll like it. - Bob > > Malcolm > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
