With the release of Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft will introduce a new programming language, Visual F#, to the mainstream .NET development community for the first time in close to a decade. Visual F# represents a new style of programming, a functional approach to programming, historically characterized by "academic" languages like Haskell and ML. In this tutorial, we'll examine the 'why and how' of F#, including the benefits and drawbacks of a functional programming style, and how it can be combined with object-oriented programming to take best advantage of both approaches. Along the way, we will write some F# code, giving the attendee a strong basis of F# syntax that they can use to learn more about F# back home.

By the end of the tutorial, in fact, attendees who bring their own laptops (with F# CTP installed) and attack the exercises provided will have enough skill at F# to begin writing F# code that can be called from C# in a variety of different contexts.