In this interview made by InfoQ’s Sadek Drobi, Don Syme, a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research, answers questions mostly on F#, but also on functional programming, C# generics, type classes in Haskell, similarities between F# and Scala.
Watch: Don Syme Answering Questions on F#, C#, Haskell and Scala (47 min.)
Syme is provoked to talk about why Haskell did not end up as a .NET language even though it was seriously considered to be implemented on .NET at one time. He also talks extensively about F#, some of the decision made internally and their reasons, why some features entered in while others were left out. Among others, he explains what asynchronous workflows are and the intent to add dynamic features to a future version of the language.
Syme also expresses his opinion on Haskell’s type classes, talks about similarities/differences between F# and Scala, C# generics, and general functional programming topics.