A Map to Success: Functional Programming for Database Developers
ABSTRACT
Over the past several years, we have seen a resurgence of interest in functional programming languages, particularly with the success of Scala and R in the marketplace. Although object-oriented (oo) design remains the dominant software development paradigm, even oo-first languages have seen a shift toward the functional mindset with the emphasis on LINQ in C# and lambdas in Java. This move toward a functional style should be particularly welcome for data platform specialists, who already have a leg up in understanding functional programming concepts thanks to their work with SQL.
In this talk, we will focus on one functional programming language, F#. We will look at some of the basics of the language and see how you can translate knowledge of SQL into a pipeline-driven functional programming language. We will also see areas where F# integrates smoothly with SQL, creating a powerful way to extend your SQL skills beyond queries.
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LINKS & FURTHER INFO
Salaries
- I used Stack Overflow's 2019 salary survey to show remuneration by language. I focused on responses from the United States.
- You can also review the 2018 survey results to see the difference from last year. The top languages in terms of salary for United States developers are (in approximate order) Clojure, F#, Go, Hack, Erlang, Groovy, Scala, and Perl. Of those, Clojure, F#, Erlang, Groovy (kind of), and Scala are functional.
Books
- Isaac Abraham's Get Programming with F# is a fantastic book for people interested in learning the language.
- If you are an advanced C# developer looking to learn F#, Tao Liu has a book designed to get you started entitled F# for C# Developers. It's not intended to get you thinking in idiomatic F# but is instead intended to help you translate some of the things you do today over to F#.
- Scott Wlaschin has a great book on domain modeling with functional programming called Domain Modeling Made Functional. Scott's examples are in F#.
- Bartosz Milewski has a book entitled Category Theory for Programmers. This is a free PDF which uses Haskell as the primary language. There is also a version with Scala examples instead of Haskell.
- If you do want to dive into Bartosz's book, I recommend Miran Lipovaca's Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! first. You can even read it for free online, though I recommend buying a copy.
Websites
- FSharp.org is the official community site for the F# Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the F# language. They have a great set of resources for people.
- F# for Fun and Profit is Scott Wlaschin's blog. It is a huge compendium of information on F# and Scott tends to be a long-form writer. If you want, Scott has the entire site in book form.
- Sergey Tihon hosts the F# weekly roundup.
Pluralsight Courses
Pluralsight has quite a few courses dedicated to F#. Here are the ones I found:- Accessing Data with F# Type Providers by Tomas Petricek
- F# Fundamentals by Liam McLennan
- F# Functional Data Structures by Kit Eason
- Building F# Type Providers by Dave Fancher
- A Functional Architecture with F# by Mark Seemann
- Unit Testing with F# by Mark Seemann
- Type-Driven Development with F# by Mark Seemann
- Test-Driven Development with F# by Mark Seemann
Other Resources
- The F# Koans are a great way to get started with the language. These are patterned after the classic Python koans.
- FSharp.org has a Slack team. There are quite a few smart people hanging out on their channels.
- You can find F# user groups all around the world.