This book marks a transition point in the history of the F# language. From its origins as a research project at Microsoft Research, Cambridge, and its long heritage from languages such as OCaml and Haskell, F# has now emerged as a stable, efficient, and enjoyable productivity tool for compositional and succinct programming on the .NET platform. With the release of Visual Studio 2010, a whole new generation of programmers will have the language available to them as they build the future through the software they design, whether it be through beautiful code, groundbreaking software frameworks, high-performance websites, new software methodologies, better numer-ical algorithms, great testing, intelligent parallelization, better modelling, or any number of the other manifestations of “good programming” with F#. As the designer of F#, I am thrilled to see Chris Smith, a major contributor on the F# team, present F#
in a way that is accessible to a wide audience.
