F# goes right up with D as "most under-rated/under-recognized language of all time"

A lot of its features for functional programming got swallowed up in later C# versions, and it's the Red-Headed Stepchild of the CLR (let's pretend VB.NET doesn't exist).

MS allows it to exist but it's a second-class citizen on the CLR, and, I think, always will be =(

their numbers are simple .... C# has millions of developers, VB.NET 100ks and F# 10ks. They put their focus where their users are. They presented a slide deck once about that.

And F# was created as a research project and is a lot more community driven than C#. So if Microsoft starts putting more people onto that, I think a part of that community will also scream that they should stay out.

There were no users when C#, VB.NET and Managed C++ (replaced by C++/CLI on .NET 2.0), likewise there were no users per se when WinRT was created with another tooling and API surface than its Win32 and .NET counterparts.

I know those numbers, and can even refer to the blog post they were presented, if a big company like Microsoft wants people to use language XYZ, they can make it happen if management cares about it.

However they aren't caring enough to sort out the GUI civil war, so why would the .NET languages by any different, regarding coherent management across the board.