F# from a C# Developers Perspective – Part 4

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Below is a random collection of things that have tickled me and/or I’ve greatly appreciated as I’ve started to write more code in F#.

Exceptions

I love how concise it is to declare and use an F# exception:

exception OoopsButterFingers

let catchTheBall () =
    raise OoopsButterFingers

Or to attach some data:

exception GetOffMyLawn of string

let strayOntoLawn () =
    raise (GetOffMyLawn "Oi!")

Single Case Discriminated Unions

Leaving the question of mutability aside I’m sure we’ve all got examples of mis-assigning IDs in models:

class User
{
    public string UserId { get; set; }
}

class Order
{
    public string OrderedByUserId { get; set; }
    public string OrderId { get; set; }
}

User user = getUser();
Order newOrder = new Order {
    OrderedByUserId = "newid",
    OrderId = user.UserId // oops, we've mis-assigned an ID 
};

It’s easily done right? And we could certainly improve that in C# but I love how simple this is in F#:

type UserId = | UserId of string

type OrderId = | OrderId of string

type User =
    {
        userId: UserId
    }
    
type Order =
    {
        orderedByUserId: UserId
        orderId: OrderId
    }
    
let user = { userId = UserId("abc") }

// This won't compile - both assignments will fail with type mismatches 
let newOrder = {
    orderedByUserId = "newId"
    orderId = user.userId
}

Currying is not named after a vindaloo

While explaining the concept of currying to a friend he asked the obvious question “why the heck is it called currying?”. I had no idea and briefly entertained the notion that it had been named in jest after, well, a curry. Which gave me a good chuckle.

However it turns out its named after an American mathematician and logician, one Haskell Curry. And so at the same time I also learned why the language Haskell is called Haskell. One of those things you feel somewhat of an ignorant philistine over not knowing.

And with that I’ll leave you with a photo of a delicious curry.

Photo via Unsplash – Steven Bennett