Why your F# evangelism isn't working

The article says F# has momentum and the author is a fan, but that alone does not make it mainstream. In the marketing sense he uses, mainstream means adoption by pragmatists and conservatives, not just early adopters.

He argues that pragmatists decide as a herd and usually adopt new technology only when they are in pain. That is why F# evangelism often fails: explaining F#’s advantages is not enough. F# will need real pragmatists with unmet needs before it can cross the chasm.

Reading notes

#

• F# is growing fast and is the author’s preferred language for personal projects.
• The author is not arguing against F#; he wants it to become a mainstream .NET language.
• In his definition, mainstream means adoption by pragmatists and conservatives.
• The term “cross the chasm” comes from Geoffrey Moore’s book.
• Moore’s model separates early adopters from pragmatists with a gap.
• Pragmatists adopt new technology as a herd and wait for other pragmatists to use it first.
• Pragmatists choose predictable disappointment over excellent but unproven technology.
• Better explanations of F# do not usually change a pragmatist’s mind.
• The author says pragmatists are not stupid; they use technology to get work done.
• The money in a market is mostly in the pragmatists and conservatives.
• A technology crosses the chasm by finding pragmatists in pain.
• F# faces extra difficulty because C# is already very good.
• Functional-first languages are related, but each ecosystem will cross on its own.
• Swift may go mainstream before F# because Apple and iOS contain many pragmatists in pain.