August F# double-header
Details
Join us for not one, but two talks by key members of the F# community: Joel Grus and Tomas Petricek!
The event will begin at 6pm with free pizza and some time to network with other attendees. The first talk will start at 6:30, followed by a 10-minute break, then the second talk.
F# for StartupsJoel Grus, VoloMetrix
If .NET is an unusual choice for a startup, F# is an extremely unusual choice. Yet at VoloMetrix we've had great success using F# to write solid production code at "startup speed". I'll briefly discuss the basics and history of F#, show you some examples of where it shines compared to C#, and talk about how it's made us more productive.
Creating Domain-Specific Languages in F#Tomas Petricek, Cambridge University
When designing software, we often need to solve numerous instances of the same problem. When designing user-interfaces, we need to describe the layout and interaction. When financial systems, we need to describe a wide range of financial contracts or, for example, recognize different patterns in price change.
Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) give us a way to solve such repeating problems. By designing a composable functional library, we can build an expressive language for describing our problems. Using the flexible F# syntax, we can get code that even non-programmers can understand.
In the talk we will learn a bit of F# so that you can start writing DSLs on your own, understand key functional concepts and learn how you can improve your C# code, and explore a number of practical DSLs ranging from 3D graphics to modeling of financial contracts.
Joel Grus is Chief Scientist at VoloMetrix, where he develops and builds the algorithms for the core analytics platform (mostly in F#). Previously he worked in data science roles at Decide, Bing, and Farecast. He has degrees in math and economics, but he sort of wishes he'd studied computer science instead.
Tomas Petricek is a long-time F# enthusiast, Microsoft MVP and author of the book Real-World Functional Programming. He leads functional programming and F# courses in London and New York and contributed to the development of F# as an intern and contractor at Microsoft Research in Cambridge. He is currently a PhD student at University of Cambridge, working on context-dependent programming languages.