Now call me daft, but when I first encountered information on F# Type Providers, I didn't get the big deal. I was looking at JSON parsing, and I ultimately ended up using JSON.NET again, because I didn't get it.
But later, I had reason to need to access a SQL database to import some data into my project. Then I actually tried the SQL Type Provider. In fact, I had such trouble comprehending them because it didn't enter into my mind that their capability could even exist. Having felt the pain of data access layers and object-relational mappers, I shelved the idea that it could be easy.
They automatically and dynamically generate types for your data source. Those types have IntelliSense support in Visual Studio. Basically all you have to do is provide a connection string (for SQL) or example data (for JSON and others).
For those familiar with Entity Framework, it's like that except without having to create and maintain an EDMX model. You can also query the database with "query" computation expressions... similar syntax to LINQ.
For schema-less data types, you just provide example data, and the type provider infers the types from that.
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