Bumblebee: Writing a F# Library for the C# Developer

Note: we will have pizza and drinks. Please RSVP so we know how much to order.

Sometime in 2010, after years of C# development, Mathias Brandewinder discovered F#, and found programming in a functional style both tricky and fun. Inspired by an article on Artificial Bee Colony algorithms, he decided as a learning project to convert it from C# into a F# library, Bumblebee, which is now available open-source at http://bumblebee.codeplex.com (http://bumblebee.codeplex.com/).

In this talk, he will share his experience transitioning from a C#-mindset to thinking F#, and some lessons learnt writing Bumblebee. We will:

briefly explain what an Artificial Bee Colony is, go through a F# primer, using Bumblebee to solve fun problems, look under the hood, and discuss the source code and the considerations that went into designing an API that would be friendly to both F# and C# users, review the unit tests, written using FsUnit, which illustrate some of the benefits of adopting a functional style

Bio

Mathias Brandewinder has been writing software in C# for 7+ years, loving every minute of it, except maybe for a few release days. He is passionate about good design, TDD, and enjoys discussing about code and arguing about how to make it better. You can find his blog at http://www.clear-lines.com/blog , or follow him on Twitter @brandewinder (http://twitter.com/brandewinder).