Python Support in Visual Studio

By Michael Foord -
Many .NET developers (all too many alas) are not willing (or not allowed) to use any language that isn't integrated into Visual Studio. As IronPython is a dynamically typed language it is much harder to build full support into Visual Studio - although there have been two attempts so far (the SDK for Visual Studio 2005 and IronPython Studio for Visual Studio 2008).

In this blog entry Dave Fugate (IronPython tester and infrastructure guy for Microsoft) explains the current state of VS support for Python and as Visual Studio 2010 approaches he looks to the future...
I think I speak for everyone on the IronPython Team when I say we’d love to see IronPython support in Visual Studio by default without the need for any language service addition. The thing is these types of decisions are made at a much higher level than us and are heavily influenced by business needs. What I’m getting at here is if enough people provided feedback via the proper channels that:
  • The next version of VS is great, but it’d be better if it supported Python development
  • You don’t currently use VS but you would if it had Python support
  • Ahem…you’d be willing to pay for IronPython support in VS
  • Etc
then the next version of VS could very well have Python support built into it. What are the proper channels for feedback you ask? The VS 2010 feedback page would be a great start.
If you're looking for an IDE for working with IronPython the best option currently is probably SharpDevelop, which has great IronPython integration.

Comments

  1. Shimmy5/25/2010 12:43 am

    Shame on Microsoft.
    We do have to go to SharpDevelop!
    They really disapointed this time adding F# (fuckin sharp) instead Python.

    Who for god's sake even cares about F#??

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael Foord5/25/2010 12:45 am

    Actually the IronPython team has now released an alpha version of "IronPython Tools for Visual Studio" which gives very good integration for IronPython into Visual Studio 2010 and is being actively developed.

    ReplyDelete

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