Chris Smith's completely unique view
Algorithms, functional programming, CLR 4.0, and of course, F#!
Good News and Sad News - Leaving Microsoft
The Good News You might have heard, Visual Studio 2010 is done, launched, and out the door! That’s...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 04/13/2010
Writing a StarCraft Bot in F#
Hi, I’m Chris Smith. You might know me as the world famous author of Programming F#, but outside of...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 03/18/2010
DAWG-fight, Optimizing text search in F# II
Some of you may have seen Dr. Brian McNamara’s post refuting my credentials as an evil genius. Lies!...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 02/17/2010
F# CTP Update!
Hot on the heels of the Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate comes the February, 2010 F# CTP. There...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 02/11/2010
Trie-ing to optimize text search in F#
Any evil genius knows that if you want to stay on top you need to exercise your mind. Most evil...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 02/09/2010
Being an Evil Genius with F# and .NET
A couple weeks ago I was in glorious Sandusky, Ohio presenting at CodeMash. CodeMash is a community...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 01/24/2010
The Halting Problem and the Church-Turing Thesis
Two weeks ago at PDC Dustin “former blogger” Campbell and I sat down with Keith and Woody to record...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 11/30/2009
Source Code for Programming F#
I've gotten a few requests recently for the source code of the examples in Programming F#. I've...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 11/23/2009
F# Language Details (Gotchas)
The ‘F’ in F# stands for fun. However, there are some details in F# that might lead to bugs,...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 11/09/2009
Awesome F# - Decision Trees – Part II
In my previous post I went over the theory behind the ID3 algorithm. Now that we got all that...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 11/02/2009
Awesome F# - Decision Trees – Part I
Programming F# is out! Meaning you can, and should, go to the store and pick up a copy today. With...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 10/31/2009
Upcoming F# Talks
Recently legendary Cambridge research Don Syme presented an Introduction to F# at JAOO Aarhus in...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 10/15/2009
Grotesque F# Code - I
Recently a friend came to me in a mild panic about some massive refactoring he needed to do to an F#...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 09/14/2009
F# for Architects: Hitting the sweet spot
When I was at DevLink last week I gave a talk designed to specifically identify why and when you...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 08/20/2009
Back in Action!
I know it’s cliché to blog about blogging, but I’d like to take this opportunity to explain why...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 08/20/2009
Lightweight PGN parser in F# – Part I
If you’ve ever spent a lot of time around the game of Chess you’ve probably seen or interacted with...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 06/13/2009
Programming F# – Official Cover
Edit 8/19: You might notice, the cover is no longer a jellyfish. While I know this is a slight...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 05/13/2009
F# Scripting Zen – Bulk Updating Testcases
As the F# team is busy working to finish up Visual Studio 2010, one task left to complete is to...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 05/09/2009
F# Community Roundup
There’s plenty going on in the F# community these days, I figured I’d provide a shameless plug for...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 05/05/2009
Idiomatic F# – Functional vs. Imperative
Our story begins with this guy, Stuart Bowers, sipping functional programming cool aid out of a...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 04/23/2009
F# and the PFX Round 1
I’m currently working on a chapter for Programming F# titled Asynchronous and Parallel Programming...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 04/08/2009
Book Update – NEW Coauthor!
You might be concerned about my lack of blogging, perhaps that I was lost in the woods and perhaps...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 04/01/2009
Petition for Programming F#’s Book Cover!
You might have noticed my blogging has slowed down to a lull; never fear, this is just because I...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 02/02/2009
Deep Fried F#
Episode 24: Chatting about F# with Chris Smith and Dustin Campbell “Get your code on!” Being the...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 01/15/2009
New Years resolutions v2.0.0.9
So I was tagged by my new homie Sarah Dutkiewicz AKA Coding Geekette about blogging my goals for...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 01/15/2009
Speech Recognition is gun and easy!
Evidently Microsoft ninjaed a new assembly into the .NET framework with the 3.0 release called...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 12/31/2008
F# No Longer Vaporware
REDMOND, WA - Sadly, after nearly four years of stringing developers along with Microsoft's longest...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 12/10/2008
F# Zen - Array slices
Sorry for not being as regular with blogging, I've been sick and working hard on something pretty...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 12/09/2008
F# Zen - ROT13
Below is a primitive implementation of ROT13 / Ceasar Cipher in F#. In short it is a simple...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 11/07/2008
F# Elevator Pitch
At the PDC I spent about eight hours a day for a full week answering the same question again and...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 11/01/2008
PDC - Day 1
I'm writing this from the 'big room' in the LA Convention Center.If you don't know, PDC is a HUGE...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 10/27/2008
Due out Next Year – Programming F# by Chris Smith
I’d like to announce that for the past few months I’ve been secretly working on a book for O’Reilly...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 10/19/2008
F# Zen – The Literal Attribute
When pattern matching it is easy to forget that you are capturing a new value instead of matching...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 10/03/2008
F# Zen - Colored printf
It’s easy to lose track of important data when logging output to the console window, fortunately you...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 10/01/2008
F# Scripting Zen – Word Interop
Edit: Added a ‘comarg’ function to dramatically clean up the syntax for doing COM-interop, since F#...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 09/23/2008
Shameless Plug Roundup
This post is entirely devoted to shameless plugs and ‘Me Too’ blogging. The Stack Overflow...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 09/18/2008
Book Review – F# for Scientists
A few weeks ago Dr. Jon Harrop published F# for Scientists and I had the fortune of snagging a copy...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 09/16/2008
Scripting in F#
The thing you hear most about F# is that it is multi-paradigm, meaning that you can use it to code...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 09/12/2008
MSBuild tasks for Lex and Yacc
While I am thrilled about all the new features we've put into the F# CTP, perhaps the thing I'm most...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 09/09/2008
Simple F# Game using WPF
With the F# CTP out the door, let’s take a look at what it can do. Ryan Cavanaugh, not the famous...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 09/04/2008
CTP Awesomeness – Goto Definition
If you’ve used Visual Studio for a few years you’ve probably memorized all the shortcuts and methods...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 09/02/2008
FSharpp to FSProj Converter
Wow, what a busy week! The F# CTP is out the door, and it's already making reverberations around the...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 08/31/2008
Understanding Tail Recursion
You may have heard of Tail Recursion before, in fact, you may have even written tail recursive...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 08/07/2008
Countdown to F# CTP
In case you didn’t see it over on Brian’s blog, he’s posted a sneak peak at the F# Project System:...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 07/28/2008
ICFP Programming Contest
As far as elite programming contests go, I thought the only one around was the ACM-ICP. (The ACM...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 07/14/2008
Mastering F# Lists
Minor update: spelling Lists represent the backbone of functional programming and in order to be an...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 07/10/2008
Some guidelines for readable F# code
When learning a new programming language it isn’t enough to know the syntax, you must also take the...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 06/25/2008
Shameless plug - FsTest
Matthew Podwysocki finished putting together a DSL for unit testing. I imagine this only scratches...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 06/22/2008
Function Composition
During a lunchtime conversation with Dustin Cambell, of Did it with .NET fame, the topic of Function...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 06/14/2008
Language Oriented Programming in F#
Last Tuesday I gave a talk to the .NET Developers Association entitled Language Oriented Programming...
Author: ChrSmith Date: 05/30/2008