IronPython Moving Forward Again

immytay writes " Jim Hugunin (Jython, Numeric, and other projects) has issued the first release of IronPython since joining Microsoft in August of last year. IronPython runs on .NET and Mono and is supposedly faster than the C version of Python. This new version is 0.7, while 0.6 was released last summer and covered here. According to the IronPython mailing list, Jim has help from a Microsoft co-worker, and he plans to work toward IronPython 1.0."

Comments

Claim on 1.x times faster and alpha

[sporty]

To quote Dilbert, "Is it ok if we do things really fast and really wrong?" I'll be amused if they reach the same speed at 1.0 release.

Java and .NET Scripting

[fm6]

There seem to be a lot of Java and .NET scripting languages that are just ports of Python or Perl. I suppose these have their uses, but the disconnect between the language and the concepts of the underlying runtime strike me as a problem.

Lately, I've become interested in Groovy, a JVM-based scripting language that combines concepts from Java (syntax, access to the class libraries) with concepts from Perl (dynamic typing, native syntax for collections and regular expressions). It would be interesting to see something similar for .NET.

Re:Java and .NET Scripting

[the quick brown fox]

Check out Boo. It's really a phenomenal language, and much more mature and stable than the version number (0.5) would lead you to believe.

Groovy has been taking a lot of heat lately. Boo seems not to suffer from the management/community problems Groovy has. In fact, Boo is just plain more exciting; Groovy is just Ruby disguised in Java syntax, as far as I can tell, whereas Boo takes what's best about Ruby (heavy emphasis on closures/blocks), Python (indent-based scoping, first class functions), and C# (static typing, properties, annotations, "using", p/invoke, .NET native), and one-ups them with type inference. It really does provide the best of both static and dynamic typing; there is NO compromise here as far as I can tell.

As a bonus, the tool support is already very good. As with any self-respecting scripting language, it includes an interactive interpreter. (Boo scripts can be interpreted or compiled.) The Visual Studio .NET debugger already works with Boo, and if you write your Boo code in SharpDevelop (a free IDE for .NET platform) you can get code completion, syntax highlighting, code folding, etc. And since it's all statically typed, there is hope for IntelliJ-like refactoring tools, although I don't think any exist yet.

Bottom line, I think any Python, Ruby, or Groovy fan should take a long, hard look at Boo. You will find a whole lot to like.

Re:Java and .NET Scripting

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on this post I went and downloaded Boo, SharpDevelop and the BooBinding for SharpDevelop.

I must say that I'm thoroughly impressed!

I started off exploring some features of the CLI and Boo was able to handle all of it with grace. Delegates are a joy to use since Functions are objects. The Type and reflection systems all work as expected. The Type Inference system is really innovative. It saves you typing through inference, but maintains strong type functionality with compile time error checking. Much of the python nonsense (self, self self), and some useufl perl features added in like literal regular expressions and string interpolation.

My jaw nearly dropped when I realized you can debug and step through code using the builtin .NET debugger. I don't know what happens with Mono.

I hope this project goes far. I'm only worried about the low amounts of news posts and mailing list traffic.

you can't use python classes yet

[llimllib]

It can *hypothetically* use Python classes - if you look at the release, there's not actually much there that you can use. As the compiler gets more stable and modern, you'll be able to use more of the python library (hopefully).