Robert H

@Justin I found it had strong echoes of Pynchon. Big jump from Broom to IJ.

While C# is a traditional procedural/OOP language (aka 'Microsoft Java'), F# is the corresponding language for the functional programming paradigm. It is extremely unknown compared to e.g., Lisp, Scala or Haskell. The _one_ advantage F# has is strong compatibility with dotnet; it is easy(ish) to incorporate performant functional libraries into existing large line-of-business applications written in C#.

@Xword Junkie Although @Eric is correct about the cluing mechanics, your instincts about the weirdness of connecting 'pho' and 'soup' are spot on. Pho is _noodles_. Not soup. In VNese, 'soup' is either 'canh' (light broth usually served with office lunch) or 'súp' (soupier soupy soups; loanword from French). Yes I know we play by 'common-usage English' rules here. But who can pass up the opportunity to be pedantically correct? :-)