F# 5 and F# tools update

In the last couple of weeks, I started to create posts about F#. Today, Microsoft has just announced some updates to F# 5 and F# tools update! They shipped a lot of preview features since F# 5 preview 1, and they have all been stabilizing since that release. Today, we’re happy to announce some minor additions to F# 5 and talk about some pretty cool performance work we’ve been doing.

Here’s how you get the latest release:

Install the latest .NET 5 preview SDK
Install Jupyter Notebooks for .NET

If you’re using Visual Studio on Windows, you’ll need both the .NET 5 preview SDK and Visual Studio Preview installed.

Using F# 5 preview

You can use F# 5 preview via the .NET 5 preview SDK, or through the .NET and Jupyter Notebooks support.

If you’re using the .NET 5 preview SDK, check out a sample repository showing off some of what you can do with F# 5. You can play with each of the features there instead of starting from scratch.

Project Jupyter is a popular platform for creating interactive notebooks

If you’d rather use F# 5 in your own project, you’ll need to add a LangVersion property with preview as the value. It should look something like this:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net5.0</TargetFramework>
    <LangVersion>preview</LangVersion>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <Compile Include="Program.fs" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

Alternatively, if you’re using Jupyter Notebooks and want a more interactive experience, check out a sample notebook that shows the same features, but has a more interactive output.