How to learn GUI programming in F#

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+5 Q:

How to learn GUI programming in F#

These days I am interested in learning F#, and would like to use it for GUI applications. Unfortunately I have no previous background in .Net or C#. Are there any good resources (web sites, books) for learning this without going through C# first?

Many thanks in advance.

http://searchwindevelopment.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid8_gci1289090,00.html

Requires registration (email address). Don't know if it's any good, but seems worth a look.

MusiGenesis 2010-05-09 01:28:09

+6 A:

The Real-world Functional Programming book that I wrote with Jon Skeet (sorry for the advertisement!) expects some existing knowledge of object-oriented languages (e.g. C#) but it briefly explains all more advanced features that C# has compared to, for example, Java.

It has a few examples of GUI programming using WinForms (a more modern framework would be WPF, but some concepts are essentially the same). You can take a look at a few examples, because there is some free content related to GUI:

Chapter 4 (coincidentally, available as a free sample :-)) shows how to implement application for drawing simple graphs using basic features.
Programming user interfaces using workflows (free excerpt) shows one advanced pattern that's very useful for writing reactive applications (as I know, this isn't described anywhere else in much details)

As far as I know, Robert Pickering's Beginning F# also has some user interface examples and it also includes some WPF examples (although I don't have the book yet, so I don't know what exactly does it contain).

However, none of the F# books will make you GUI Expert. You'll still need to spend some time learning about WinForms/Silverlight/WPF in more details. There are plenty of examples in C# on the internet and after reading one of the above, you should be able to translate them directly to F#, but buying a technology-specific book may be a good idea too.

Tomas Petricek 2010-05-09 01:28:42

Can you use winform/WPF designer in visual studio with F#?

BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft 2010-05-09 01:49:18

@BlueRaja: Not directly, but you can create a C# project just to contain the designer-generated code. See this post: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2604589/seeing-c-windows-forms-project-code-from-f/2604735#2604735

Tomas Petricek 2010-05-09 02:09:39

I've got your book Tomas and I'd say it's a great place to start.

Onorio Catenacci 2010-05-09 02:40:16

I've got it too and I what I've read so far is very good. :)

Mark Simpson 2010-05-09 03:10:38

Thanks for the advice. Looks like a very good book, and with the other votes I am going to buy it. One thing though, does it need actual experience in C#? The description says so. I don't have that, though I have experience in object oriented programming (Java, C++, Delphi).

Muhammad Alkarouri 2010-05-09 20:11:33

@Muhammad: I think that experience with Java should be good enough. The book expects that readers use the object-oriented mindset. It uses some specific C# features such as iterators or lambda expressions, but all of these are briefly explained in a side-bar (and if you needed to clarify some details, there is a plenty of C# resources on the internet).

Tomas Petricek 2010-05-11 01:36:10

@Tomas: Many thanks. Iterators and lambda expressions are certainly to be expected in functional programming. I have used them in other languages, and I am sure the side-bar explanations would be enough for the syntax. I have ordered the book.

Muhammad Alkarouri 2010-05-11 13:33:11

+2 A:

I just got the The Real-world Functional Programming book and if you want to mix F# with GUI stuff that's the book for you since it has plenty of examples and it jumps right into it. That's the main reason I got it :) Online I've come across this and I like the F#/DirectX example. F#.NET tutorials and examples

daveangel 2010-05-09 02:32:21

My book Visual F# 2010 for Technical Computing has a chapter devoted to graphics using WPF and covers basic WPF controls and the use of WPF from F# interactive. There are also many articles in The F#.NET Journal that cover WPF (scroll down and run some of the downloadable demos). Our F# News often contains short blog posts with WPF-based F# applications in them, e.g. Game of Life in 32 lines of F#.

Jon Harrop 2010-05-10 02:20:27

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