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Is there any way to access let bound fields from a static member? The following gives the indicated error: type Foo(x) = let x = x static member test() = let foo = Foo(System.DateTime.Now.Month) printfn "%A" foo.x //the field, constructor or member 'x' is not defined () Whereas private explicit fields do allow access from static members: type Bar = val private x:int new(x) = { x=x } static member test() = let Bar = Bar(System.DateTime.Now.Month) printfn "%A" Bar.x () The documentation http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd469494.aspx states that "Explicit fields are not intended for routine use," yet accessing private instance fields from static members is certainly a routine scenario. Moreover, I don't believe you can set explicit fields within a primary constructor, which means if even one private instance field needs to be accessed from a static member, all of your fields must be moved over to explicit fields and you can no longer use a primary constructor -- it's all or nothing. As real world example where you would actually want to access a private instance field from a static member, consider a big integer implementation: a BigInteger class would be immutable, so the internal representation of the big integer would kept as a private instance field (let's call it data ). Now, suppose you felt an Add(other) instance method was inappropriate for an immutable data structure and you only wanted to implement a static Add(lhs,rhs) method: in this case, you would need to be able to access lhs.data and rhs.data .

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