Web Programming with F#

F# is excellent for building scalable, robust web solutions:

• Fast and Scalable - F# is much faster than NodeJS, Python, PHP and Ruby
• Succinct - F# is concise, readable and type-safe, for fast development of robust web solutions
• Asynchronous - F# provides asynchronous programming to simplify scalable client-server programming
• Interoperable - F# interoperates seamlessly with languages such as C#, JavaScript and TypeScript
• JavaScript-ready - F# is JavaScript-ready through WebSharper and FunScript
• Open-source and Cross-platform - Like all good web tools!

Building Web Applications:

Some specific options for web application development are:

• WebSharper - Allows end-to-end web applications with both client and server developed in F#.

  WebSharper includes TypeScript interoperability, mobile web apps, getting started material, templates and much more.

• ASP.NET MVC - A widely used open source web framework from Microsoft.

  Views are implemented in HTML with some C#. Models and controllers are implemented in F#.

  The F#/C# Web Templates (Visual Studio, ASP.NET MVC 4)
  include templates for ASP.NET MVC 4 (ASPX/Razor) and Single Page Applications with Backbone.js or Knockout.js.

  The F#/C# ASP.NET MVC 3 Templates include templates for ASP.NET MVC 3 (ASPX/Razor). The F#/C# Web Templates (MonoDevelop, ASP.NET MVC 4) are a similar se of cross-platform templates for MonoDevelop.

• FunScript - An F# to JavaScript converter with TypeScript interoperability.

• PicoMvc is a micro framework for F# web programming.

Building Server-Side Web APIs:

F# shines in the area of Web API development through frameworks like ServiceStack, ASP.NET Web API, Frank and NancyFx.

• F# and ServiceStack Example 1 - Web Services on any platform in and out of a web server! An async+parallel cached twitter proxy that works cross platform on Windows/OSX and Linux in 100 LOC
• F# and ServiceStack Example 2 - An Async, Cached Twitter API Proxy in F#
• F#, ServiceStack and Heroku - Using ServiceStack and Heroku with F#
• F# async on the server side - Non-blocking I/O on the server side
• F#/C# Web Templates for REST - (Visual Studio, ASP.NET Web API) Includes templates for ASP.NET Web API.
• F# Web Data Feed Template for OData - (Visual Studio, ASP.NET)Provides a project template for creating a convention-based OData Web Service in F# that runs under ASP.NET.
• F#/C# Web Service Template for WSDL - (Visual Studio, ASP.NET) Includes a template for WCF.

Hosting

Common hosting options are:

• Heroku - See, for example, F#, ServiceStack and Heroku
• Azure Web Sites - Create and deploy to free Azure web sites from Visual Studio and other tools
• AppHarbor - Free hosting of .NET web applications

Scaling to the Cloud

The Cloud Programming section contains more details on cloud programming with F#. Some specific resources related to web programming are:

• F# 3.0 Azure Samples
• How to Create a Cloud-Scalable Internet Game Using F#, C#, and ASP.NET
• Using F# and C# with Amazon EC2 Elastic Map/Reduce

Unit Testing Libraries

It is common to create a suite of unit tests when building web solutions. A list of open source libraries that assist with unit testing is available here:

• FsCheck
• FsUnit
• Fuchu
• NaturalSpec
• TickSpec
• Unquote

Here are a few Visual Studio 2012 project templates available for building unit tests:

• F# MsTest Project
• F# Unit Test Template (MSTest)

Books

Several books have been written that include information on building web applications with F#:

• Building Web, Cloud, and Mobile Solutions with F#
• Expert F# 3.0
• Programming F# 3.0
• Professional F# 2.0
• Real-World Functional Programming: With Examples in F# and C#

Presentations

There are several presentations and tutorials available that include information on build web applications with F#:

• Building an HTML5 application with WebSharper Sitelets, Part 1
• Building Better Web Apps with F#
• Building Data-Driven Websites
• F# 3.0: data, services, Web, cloud, at your fingertips
• F# Introduction

Silverlight Applications:

For those still using Silverlight, you can use F# to build Silverlight projects in whole or in part. Some resources are:

• F# Client-Side Application Template (Visual Studio, Silverlight) - Includes a simple template for creating F# Silverlight Applications. The template creates a single Silverlight project that creates Silverlight controls from F# code and runs in an automatically generated HTML page.
• F# Web Application Template (Silverlight) Includes a template for Silverlight 4 and 5.