What are some well known applications written in F#? [closed]

Question

As part of a continuing quest for knowledge, I'm spending some time this week learning the basics of F# as an introduction to functional programming. I think I am understanding the construction of software under this model and some of the proposed benefits, but am still a little fuzzy on the real-world use cases.

I was hoping that a F# success stories, or at least a few applications that I'd be familiar with might make it a little clearer about when F# (or any functional programming language) would be appropriate for a project.

So back to the question, what are some well known applications that use F# or a similar functional programming language?

BTW: I am also open to hearing about some lesser-known apps, but if you mention one, please give the basics of what the app is about and why the language used was the appropriate choice.

Answer 1

• The entire F# system (compiler, libraries and tools)
• IronJS (already mentioned)
• The XBox Live TrueSkill algorithm, as well as the whole Achievements system, the ranking system and the matchmaking system surrounding it

I guess the main reason why there are no "well-known" applications written in F#, is because it takes years, even decades to become "well-known" and F# simply isn't that old yet.

However, the overwhelming majority of applications are not "well-known". There is only one PowerPoint, but there are literally millions of hand-written custom little one-off in-house payroll apps.

And F# is certainly used in-house in many financial companies, doing scientific and numeric computing in, say, biotech or greentech, doing statistics god knows where and so on. These applications aren't well-known, either because they simply aren't "sexy" or often because the companies consider F# their secret weapon which gives them a competitive edge. (OCaml, Smalltalk and APL fill similar roles. Many financial companies use APL, for example, but they don't widely publicize it. Indeed, oftentimes the APL users aren't even programmers, and thus wouldn't even know where and how to publicize it even if they wanted to.)

Answer 2

There is Tabbles. A file manager and organizer, with a lot of features. It provides a tagging system that you can even share with others. It's a commercial product.

Answer 3

I've wondered the same thing for awhile know. I really like F# but haven't seen anything in the realm of a commercial app. What I have heard (and quite frequently) is that F# has been used a lot in the financial realm.

What decent web-frameworks exists for functional programming? has some examples of web frameworks for functional programming languages and I know http://cs.hubfs.net/blogs/tomasp/archive/2010/05/09/14050.aspx is an article how to write an ASP.Net MVC 2 Web app in F#.

As I have been searching articles on F# and a lot of examples and people's praise has come in the form of log parsers. But that is always followed up with a caveat of something along the lines of "I'm not allowed to use the language at work" (paraphrased of course). I'll try to find more examples.

I have been toying with the idea of creating a text-based MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) in F# but I never seem to have the time.

Answer 4

I looked at F# briefly when I wanted to write a SQL parser, which I ended up implementing in Haskell. That said, you could use F# anywhere you would use C#, but would it be worth it? If you'll be doing a lot of functional programming, using F# will be worthwhile, as the syntax for functional constructs is friendlier. If you're doing mostly OO, it's probably better to stick with C#.

Answer 5

Iron JS.

I personally think that it is odd that the only application I know of that is written in F# is something that allows you to write in a language other than F#.

To me, that says a lot about the true value of functional programming. People can celebrate how "beautiful" it is all they want--if it were so beautiful, people would be using it more.