IronPython: Batteries Included

By Michael Foord -
The new release of IronPython includes (in the msi installer - which now works by the way) the Python standard library for the first time.

This is great news, and is the result of Harry Pierson pressing the Microsoft lawyers into submission so that they can make a 'dual-license' release - IronPython under the
Microsoft Public License and the Python standard library under the Python license.

This opens the way to patches to the standard library for IronPython compatibility. FePy (the IronPython Community Edition) has included several of these patches for some time.

Harry has more 'lawyer-time' ahead of him - so that IronPython can accept community contributions and submit patches back to core Python - but this is a great step.

At the moment the entire standard library is included, including modules that can never work because they rely on C extensions. In his latest blog entry Harry talks about the new 'batteries-included' approach for IronPython, and how it might develop.

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