Functional Languages

[alain]

Is anybody using functional languages (OCaml, Haskell, F#, List or anything in between) in finance? Does anybody knows about it?

I know Jane Street Capital (Jane Street Capital, LLC (http://www.janestcapital.com/careers.html) and http://cufp.galois.com/slides/2006/YaronMinsky.pdf) uses OCaml for almost everything which is really interesting but I would like to know if there is any other places that take advantage of functional language.

[fixedincomenyc]

I am not sure about these: OCaml, Haskell, F#,

However, either one of these may be supported by .NET If this is the case you could easily interface with stored .NET/CLR/CLS routines coded in C++/VB at the firms that implement the more popular languages.

So really, you need a list of interoperable languages within the .NET framework. If OCaml, Haskell, F# is on the list you are in luck.

[joe_bradley]

Regarding which one is supported by .net, F# is a microsoft product built on top of .NET, so obviously it's got that going for it. There's one catch: AFAIK it's a beta product from their research group, so there's no guarantee that is going to see a commercial release. I'm not aware of .NET implementations for other languages, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

Also, as far as the ability of languages running on .NET to easily integrate to microsoft's c++/vb... that is true only for code that has been ported to the .net framework itself; e.g. VB.NET code or VC++ using "managed code." Lots of places which are "Microsoft shops" still use the old VB6 or VC++ without the .NET framework.

As far as which one may catch on in the finance industry, I'm speaking from pure ignorance. But as a long-time software developer, I can say with absolute confidence, that if you pick OCaml, then F# will take off in adoption, and that if you learn F#, then your next job will have absolutely no use for it. ;-) Etc., etc. Personally, I'd rather not learn yet another language "just in case." OTOH if you've never used a functional language it's good to have working knowledge of at least one, just because gives you a different way to think about problems. So from that point of view, you can pick any of them and benefit.