[GiorgioG]

If you want to get things done in .NET Core, use C#. If you want to learn functional programming then sure, use F# and the full .NET Framework...but good luck finding help when you need it because compared to the number of people Elixir, Scala, etc - hardly anyone is using F#.

I started learning F#, but ultimately I decided I'd rather learn either Scala or Elixir because they are more "mainstream" functional programming options. If anyone doubts this, compare the number of F# repos to Elixir/Scala on Github.

I've voiced my frustration on several Github issues about the fact that F# is understaffed at MS, that F# is a 2nd class citizen to C#, etc - to no avail. It's fine, management at MS makes those calls...but then they shouldn't be surprised that there's no uptake on F#'s usage.

[wyoung2]

> If you want to get things done in .NET Core, use C#.

And if you want to get things done in F#, don't use .NET Core. :) Good thing .NET Core is merely the .NET du jour, not the only .NET.

> If anyone doubts this, compare the number of F# repos to Elixir/Scala on Github.

Challenge accepted. It turns out that GitHub's advanced search page can answer questions like this directly:

Projects written in F#: 4,246 (https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=language%3AF%23&t...)

Projects written in Elixir: 4,667 (https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=language%3AElixir...)

That's less than 10% higher. Plus, I'd guess there is a bias against closed-source projects in that result, owing to the nature of .NET.

Scala is indeed a lot higher at 38,424 projects, though I wonder how many of the complaints about F# from C# users apply apply equally to Scala. (e.g. Poor GUI builder support, no native compiler, etc.)

F#'s language representation on GitHub is also nearly equal to that of OCaml, a much older language.

I'd say that's a pretty good showing for a new-ish language. Not everything's going to pop to the top like Swift, which IMHO is a "people in Hell want ice water" reaction to Objectionable C.

[GiorgioG]

> And if you want to get things done in F#, don't use .NET Core. :)

Yep - stick with the version of .NET that MS is desperately trying to deprecate - remember recently when they tried to get away with not supporting ASP.NET Core 2.0 on the full framework?

> Good thing .NET Core is merely the .NET du jour, not the only .NET.

Yep, who would want to use the cross-platform, modern implementation of .NET?

> That's less than 10% higher.

Except that F# has been around twice as long as Elixir (2005 vs 2011.)

F# is the minor league team that C# farms features from. Nothing more in microsoft’s eyes.