Recently I have been playing around with building a web site using F# through the Giraffe library. This has been an enlightening experience. Most of my previous web development knowledge is from the Python world, specifically Django. In this blog I will try to compare the feel these two so different niches have.

F# vs Python

First things first - F# is a statically compiled functional language, which targets .NET framework. I’m using .NET5 specifically, although, of course, earlier versions have F# support as well. The language has been around for quite some time and is popular in some narrow circles. I find it unfortunate - it is a great programming tool and it enjoys from the rich .NET echo system. A fair comparison would be that F# occupies the same position in the .NET/CLI world vs C# as Scala in JVM vs vanilla Java.

Since moving my blog to Django and Wagtail, I have been adding new features to it on a regular basis. The most recent addition is the new ability to typeset mathematical equations and formulas. To be fair, all the heavy lifting is courtesy of the MathJax project. These guys did an amazing job - they implemented, in JavaScript, support for LaTeX syntax. Quite astonishing, if you ask me. Very easy to use, assuming you know LaTeX. Works in any modern browser, including on mobile, i.e. Android or iPhone. See for yourself:

Electronic trading, also known as automated trading, algo/algorithmic trading is, quite simply, a process of automatic buying and selling of financial instruments. It can be fully or partially automated. In recent years electronic trading of various flavours became extremely popular. Large banks, hedge funds and other investment institutions are on one end of scale of users, while small day traders and other part time and amateur players can be found on the other. Almost any kind of instrument is available on one electronic platform or another. Traditional shares, options, futures, Forex, bonds, although for the latter the automated markets are not mature enough yet. Lately we also observe the explosive entrance of cryptocurrencies into this field.

Python allows you to send calendar appointments (invitations / events) directly from your code. It is quite easy to create a new appointment in the standard iCalendar format (ics). You can do it by hand or use a convenient icalendar open source module. In order to convince Outlook, however, to present the iCalendar events as native calendar appointments, you will need to make some effort. Fortunately, other people have already collected all the necessary pieces. Below is a working example for sending Outlook-friendly invitation from Python. In principle, you could use some of the information here to send similar invitation using different API, for example .NET.