title: What is the advantage of F# Type Providers over traditional 'type providers'?
body: <p>From the <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/hh156509.aspx" rel="noreferrer">MSDN page on F# Type Providers</a>:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>An F# type provider is a component that provides types, properties,
    and methods for use in your program.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>So it is like a .NET class library? What is the difference? And:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Writing these types manually is very time-consuming and difficult to
    maintain.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Does a Type Provider write itself automatically? There is more:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Similarly, a type provider for WSDL web services will provide the
    types, properties, and methods you need to work directly with any WSDL
    web service.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>There are utilities for generating types from a WSDL URL, again what is the advantage provided by Type Providers here?</p>
  
  <p>My first thoughts were F# Type Providers provide types at runtime like .NET remoting but that does not seem to be the case. What are the advantages of using them?</p>