Getting started with Functional web

I am doing web development for quite a long time. And nowadays I am pushing myself to do functional programming. Learning languages like Haskell, Scala, F#. Obviously I try my hand at other functional languages too as time permits.

As I am a .Net developer, my primary focus is working with F# and I will start from that only. You can also check out other functional articles of mine to see what I think about functional programming and why it is a necessity nowadays.

F# for a long time has been treated as a second class citizen in mainstream programming in the .Net area. But now it is picking up pace. When I decided to write a complete series on web development, I was even thinking the same way. There would be a C# project and an F# project. The C# project would take care of the UI and the F# project would do all the heavy lifting.

But thanks to the wonderful community of F#, we now have pure templates. And that is the point to start. Complete web development using F# only. Nothing can be more fun than this. And it doesn't end here—there are testing, mocking, and testing libraries.

With this series, I will try to explore every vertical of web development. Including deployment to the cloud.

I will also make sure to keep posting details about Scala and Clojure too, in comparison to F#

Let's start with Hello World. Go to the Visual Studio gallery and download the templates and add-ons for F# web development.

Here is the list.

• Servicestak (Update is coming soon)
• NancyFX
• Simple.Web
• Asp.net MVC5 & Web API2
• Fantomas For code formatting
• F# Outlining
• F# web templates

Installing these templates and add-ons will give you nice ways to start. Trust me, I am enjoying it far more since these pure F# templates arrived.

For people who are new to the language, I will start with a simple conversion from OOP to functional programming. Most of them are one-to-one maps only. So there will be less use of pure functional concepts. But slowly I will move to a more functional style of programming. And try to achieve nirvana.

People trying Scala or coming from a Java background—Play is the choice of framework for you. It is supported by a wonderful community and built over the ever-powerful AKKA.

For people who don't like types or are coming from a Ruby-like language background, Clojure is for you. And here is a Twitter conversation with Bodil about the selection of frameworks.

@kunjee I'm a bit out of touch, used to prefer straight Ring + Compojure, maybe Aleph. But that was before both core.async and Pedestal...

— Bodil Stokke (@bodil) February 5, 2014

For people who are going with F# / Scala, there are a couple of reference readings for getting started.

• F# for fun and profit
• Functional Architecture with F#
• Jessica Kerr's blog for Scala lovers

Do have a look.

Disclaimer: I am neither an expert in web nor functional programming. But I know web a little bit more than other programming things and I love functional programming.

So, what are we waiting for?

Let's rock.