2017 has been a very exciting year for F#.

To begin, F# has grown to be bigger than ever, at least as far as we can measure, through product telemetry, twitter activity, GitHub activity, and F# Software Foundation activity.

Active unique users of F# we can measure are in the tens of thousands.

Measured unique users of Visual Studio Code with Ionide increased by over 50% this year, to become far larger than ever.

this year, to become far larger than ever. Measured unique users of Visual Studio who use F# i ncreased by over 20% since last year to be larger than ever, despite quality issues earlier in the year that we believe have inhibited growth.

since last year to be larger than ever, despite quality issues earlier in the year that we believe have inhibited growth. Much of the measured growth coincides with the release of .NET Core 2.0, which has shown significant interest in the F# community.

Telemetry is a complicated topic, and we do not try to account for existing users who are using F# in environments without telemetry, so it’s never perfect. Actual usage of F# in the world is strictly higher than what we can measure.

But numbers and metrics are limited, because they tell only a small part of the story. I’ll attempt to summarize some of the major things that happened for F# this year.

Wew, that’s a lot. I probably missed some things that matter to people, so please let me know if you feel I should list something.

If there’s a single thing I feel most when looking at the above list, it’s pride. Not just in myself or my immediate colleagues, but in the members of the F# community who have done so many incredible things across such a wide spectrum of the entire F# ecosystem. Every single person involved in the above items should feel proud of themselves and their accomplishments. I’m American, and thus prone to superlatives, but you are all rock stars and I’m humbled to work with you all.

I’d also like to mention a few of the things that matter to me on a more personal level:

I was one honored to be one of the Community Heros announced at OpenFSharp:

I think it’s rare to find a job in my field that is this rewarding. There is a lot of stress involved, and the problems that need solving and issues that need addressing are never simple. But it’s worth it every time.