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on 12/26/2015 7:25 AM

WebSharper – a year in review

Just over a year ago, last year in December we released WebSharper 3 on Apache, putting it into the hands of every F# web developer. One thing we learned from WebSharper 2 is that more frequent releases are better and this year kept the whole team busy with constant innovation and new releases. Below is a list I cherry-picked from the WebSharper blog:

We have also:

Conferences and academia

This year we concentrated on getting work out and attended fewer conferences than in previous years. In 2014, the WebSharper team gave 16 talks on WebSharper in six countries, this year we gave nine talks in six countries.

The team submitted three research papers to academic conferences in 2015, continuing our tradition to publish research results in peer-reviewed conferences.

Next to conferences and research papers, our team has been active in teaching and trainings. Among others, we run functional reactive web development courses with F# and WebSharper at the Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE) and the University of Dunaujvaros, and have signed a similar agreement with the University of Szeged. We are also involved in creating an online semester long course for international students.

Coming up

Our WebSharper team has been cooking up some awesome things that are not yet available or not yet documented. In particular, with more blog entries coming up on each:

  • WebSharper 4 - we are finalizing the last bits of moving WebSharper to the F# Compiler Services (FCS) and merging the F#+WebSharper compilation steps into a single sweep, giving a significant boost to compilation speed, better F# language coverage, and fixing a number of corner cases in earlier releases. The first alphas are out in early January under a new WebSharper codename “Zafir”.

  • WebSharper 4 for C# - we are finally able to bring WebSharper to C# developers, covering the most common C# scenarios (asyncs, LINQ, etc.), most of the language, and calls to any one of the existing extensions in the WebSharper ecosystem. A lot more on this in upcoming blogs.

  • WebSharper.React - bringing React to WebSharper applications. Here is a live example:

  • WebSharper.LiveData - automatic syncronization of reactive data models between a server and its participating clients. You can read a draft of our first, upcoming tutorial.

  • WebSharper.Forms and WebSharper.Forms.Bootstrap - reactive web forms (aka. reactive Piglets) with custom rendering. Here is a live example that uses Bootstrap-based rendering for a login form:

  • New extensions, in particular WebSharper.JointJs and WebSharper.Rappid - bringing awesome diagramming solutions to WebSharper:

  • Updating CloudSharper with the latest WebSharper - this has been left on the backburner for several releases, now it's time to sync the two again. Once this work is finished, CloudSharper will be your one-stop shop for online web and mobile development with C# and F#; quick data access, analytics and visualization, and a host of other interactive capabilities.

This article gave you a quick overview of WebSharper in 2015, and is by no means complete. One thing is certain: WebSharper remains the primary choice for F# web developers, giving unparalleled productivity and access to the largest F# web ecosystem, and works well with a number of other efforts (ASP.NET, MVC, OWIN, Suave, Hopac, etc.) in the web and development space.

Happy coding and Happy Holidays!

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I have been learning the latest stuff from the JS world for a few months now. Previously I only knew basics like jquery,D3 and a little bit of Angular.

My language of choice is F# and it is not going to change any time soon.

After a few months of learning I already know TypeScript, React, Redux and more.

I'm looking forward to see React binding for WebSharper. I would like to code my markup with JSX, bind everythink in JavaScript and replace Redux completly with Websharper!

I also have one question: is it/or will it be possible to compile F# (websharper) file to JS using a command? Particularly I would like to embed this process to gulp and include it in my solution according to my needs.

Thanks for a great work!

By on 1/2/2016 11:52 AM ()

Have a look at WebSharper.Warp or ionide-websharper (a WebSharper plugin for Atom) for examples on how to compile F# scripts and source files to JavaScript. The core F#-to-JS compiler is also available as a standalone NuGet package. Here is an F# snippet that might be of help as well.

By on 1/3/2016 1:34 PM ()
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