No. 1 the Foreach Loop
The models at Paris’ prestigious art school “Beaux Arts” intend to strike today over the mayor of Paris' decision to ban the tips that students pay to them. Traditionally at the end of the session, if the students liked the model because they sat still or because they inspired their imagination, they pay a small tip called “cornet”. The mayor of Paris has decided to bad this practice because it is paid directly to the model in cash and so not taxed and therefore “argent au noir”. This decision does seem a little mean given that the models are paid 12 euros an hour, just a little over the “simc” - France’s minimum wage.
To coincide with the release the CTP release of F# Microsoft also released and early version “Solver Foundation”. Don Box described himself as being elated by its release. You can tell it’s an early version as it’s currently the only way to get it is part of “F# Optimization Modelling Language” sample on the MSDN code gallery.
F# is on dotnetrocks again, this time it’s Amanda Laucher and Ted Neward’s turn to talk F# with Carl and Richard. I have to say of all the F# podcast there have been so far this is my favourite. Why? Amanda and Ted do a really great job of articulating what I’ve been thinking about F#, and functional programming in general, for some time now. I think this is because Amanda and Ted have a similar background to me – they both come from the world of line of business applications. This is interesting because if you read the marketing blurb from Microsoft F# is clear target at the scientific/mathematical world, with a foot note that it is a general purpose programming language that can be used for anything you like.
As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been reading “Collective Intelligence” by Toby Segaram and I’m really enjoying in it. It’s different to a lot of programming books, in that rather than focusing a specific language or API it focus on a particular set of problems and shows techniques that can be used to crack them.
Well the F# T-shirt I ordered arrived last Thursday, meaning it took about a week or so after ordering:
Now that the F# CTP is out, you may be wondering what I think of it. Well I’m planning to tell you in a later post, first let me explain what I’ve been up to: If you’re a follower of this blog you’ve probably noticed that there hasn’t been a lot of activity lately (apart from the short announcement about JAOO.dk). This is largely due to the fact I’ve moved house and have been doing a lot of gardening and DIY lately.
As mentioned previously I’ll be attending a couple of conferences soon and mainly inspired by Amanda Launcher’s F#TW t-shirt I decided to print up an F# t-shirt of my own. I had more ideas for designs that I could actually fit in my t-shirt draw, so I decided to make up a few designs and see if anyone else would like to buy them, you can see all the designs here. I’ve only just ordered my t-shirt and so I can’t vouch for the quality or service yet, but tshirtcity.com seems like a serious company and I’ll post an update when it arrives. If you want to make up your own design there are many other sites like this.