Phil Trelford

While functional programming was so far considered more an academic topic than a language paradigm for real word programming, this viewpoint has completely changed in the last years. One main reason for this change is the evolution of multi core processing. While programming for multi cores is considerably hard using main stream languages such as C#, C++ or Java, the core properties of functional programming nicely support concurrency. In addition, the compactness and conciseness of functional features offers great value for large scale system development. That's the reason why C# and Java are currently enriched with functional language features. Another driver for developers of functional languages are virtual engines like the Java VM and the Microsoft CLR which allow easy hosting of new languages.

The tutorial is going to introduce functional programming in general and the programming languages F# and Scala in detail. While Scala is mainly running on the JVM, F# has become one of the core languages delivered with Visual Studio 2010 on the Microsoft CLR. By getting to know both languages, attendees will understand the basic ingredients of functional languages but also possible differences. They will learn how these languages integrate with other languages, e.g. Scala with Java and F# with C#. And finally, they will also understand the strengths and limitations of the functional paradigm.