Inside Microsoft's new F# language
ExtremeTech | at | by Mike
What is F#?
Some cynics say that there are no more completely "new" ideas. Well, in this instance they're right. F# is derived from a series of different imperative and functional languages as are most modern languages (including Java and C).
For background, an imperative language - like COBOL, FORTRAN or Pascal -- is one that allows the use of variables which can be assigned values which are then updated later in the program. These variables can hold intermediate values or other values at the developer's discretion. For example, in an imperative language, a developer might first define a numeric variable "X", and assign it an initial value of 3 (X=3). Then during the course of the program, X might be changed through addition, subtraction or other numerical operations.