EdLambda meetup: Functional Web Programming in Links and F#
Description changed:
Functional programming has been shown to be a good fit for web
development. The Links functional web programming language
developed by Cooper, Lindley, Wadler and Yallop at the University
of Edinburgh allows client, server, and database code to be
written in a single language, while providing abstractions such
as formlets to allow form data to be retrieved in a structured,
elegant and type-safe manner. More recently, these ideas have
been picked up and expanded upon in IntelliFactory's WebSharper
web framework, which embeds many of the concepts in the .NET
functional-first language F#.
In this talk, I'll take a look at Links and WebSharper, comparing
the approaches taken by each. In doing so, I'll explore some of
the language features of F# which make the embedding possible,
revisit some web abstractions such as Formlets, and talk about
some more recent abstractions such as Piglets (yes, Piglets).