IronPython URLs

Try Python is an online interactive Python tutorial using IronPython and Silverlight. The source code is available and open source and the tutorial material is written in a subset of the ReStructured Text markup. Noel Baoilleach has taken this a step further by creating his own version, including the Webel library library and a tutorial on using it with interactive examples. Cheminformatics Tutorial using Python and Silverlight Try Python with Cheminformatics Tutorial Recently I introduced Webel, a Python cheminformatics module that runs entirely on web services. One of the advantages of such a module is that it can be used in places where it is difficult to install a traditional cheminformatics toolkit. Like in your browser. After some little work, I present Try Python...with Cheminformatics. This adds Webel as well as a short tutorial that introduces many of its features. With a few more tutorials that cover SMILES, InChI and so on in more detail, this could be useful for t

GTK# is a managed interface to the GTK user interface library. GTK# is part of the Mono project, but it can also be used from .NET on Windows. In this blog entry, another one from Steve Gilham, he illustrates using GTK# from both IronPython and C# by porting some C# examples. “Hello GTK#” from the latest IronPython and F# A little post to record a short bit of spiking with GTK# as UI toolkit, porting the simple C# examples from here to my preferred .net languages. Neither of these explorations are totally novel -- there are examples in either language to Google, but not all of them recorded all the details of the slight rough spots that needed a little working (and they were often not at all recent, either). For IronPython 2.6 latest with GTK# 2.12.9-2, running the programs as ipy Program.py . The dynamic nature of the language means we can lose a lot of the declaration clutter. We just have to explicitly reference the main GTK# assembly (which is GAC'd by the GTK# install

More IronPython and DLR related projects, articles and news from around the web. Alpha-encoding file versions  Steve Gilham shows how to generated encoded version strings for installers using IronPython: When building installers the UpgradeVersion must have a unique property value that is an installer public property (upper-case alpha). So, what better way of adding uniqueness than making it have the form "product name + product version" with the version suitably encoded... So, a script for turning a file version (4 x 16bit ints) encoded as a System.Version into a short alpha string, assuming that Major and Minor will be small, and that common approaches are to step Build, to use a stepped Build plus date-stamped Revision, or a timestamp Build and Revision. C# + IronPython: вызов методов An article on IronPython, and in particular using IronPython from C#, in Russian. IronSharePoint Source Code Available   A while ago Christian Glessner announced the start of the I

Face detection in images is very cool (and perhaps a little bit scary), and with the help of Emgu CV it can be done from IronPython. Emgu CV is a cross platform .Net wrapper to the Intel OpenCV image processing library. Allowing OpenCV functions to be called from .NET compatible languages such as C#, VB, VC++, IronPython etc. The wrapper can be compiled in Mono and run on Linux / Mac OS X. This blog entry from Clark Updike shows how. Face Detection "Hello World" in IronPython using Emgu CV and OpenCV  A couple notes compared to the Emgu wiki version--I was able to get everything working without having to disturb the IronPython install (I didn't copy any files into the IronPython start directory). I simply linked used sys.path to add the locations where the dll's live. Also, I did explicit import for everything. It's a bit more work to figure out what needs to be imported, but it avoids namespace pollution issues. Also, the img.Draw line needed a few tweaks.

One of the important new features in IronPython 2.6 is the __clrtype__ metaclass.The __clrtype__ metaclass allows you to create a real .NET class that backs your Python classes. This is important because there are many .NET features that * require * a real .NET class: which includes databinding and implementing WCF services (Windows Communication Foundation). The problem with __clrtype__ is that it requires dealing with low level details; namely building the class yourself from IL bytecode. Harry Pierson and Shri Borde have been working on a library ( clrtype.py ) to make this simpler. Lukáš Čenovský has looked at this before but hit limitations with what clrtype made possible. In three new blog entries he demonstrates how to use __clrtype__ with databinding in WPF and Silverlight and to implement WCF services. INotifyPropertyChanged and databinding in IronPython WPF   INotifyPropertyChanged is important interface for building WPF or Silverlight applications using M-V-VM

IronPython 2.6 is the up-and-coming version of IronPython targeting compatibility with Python 2.6. As well as the new features in Python 2.6, IronPython 2.6 has several important new features specific to IronPython. These include: The __clrtype__ metaclass for data binding and .NET attribute support Implementation of the ctypes module Support for Python stack frames and sys.settrace , which means the pdb debugger works Better performance through adaptive compilation Faster startup IronPython 2.6 Release Candidate 3 has just been released. The hope is that this will be the last release candidate before the final release: IronPython 2.6 Release Candidate 3 Release Notes and Download We’re pleased to announce the third and hopefully final release candidate of IronPython 2.6. Release Candidate 3 only includes Silverlight-related changes pertaining to some incompatibilities between 2.6 RC1 and RC2. Those who utilize IronPython for non-Silverlight scenarios will happily find virtu

Two more articles from Ibrahim Kivanc, the Turkish blogger who has written several articles on IronPython and Silverlight. Both of these articles are in English. IronPython 2.0 and Access to .NET Libraries IronPython 2.0 version now runs on DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime). DLR is a platform on .NET which is host Dynamicly typed languages on it. Now Dynamic Languages Communicate eachother and C#,VB, COM Objects, .NET Libraries. IronPython, with 2.0 version runs on DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime); it’s a platform like CLR architecture. It’s host for Dynamic Languages on .NET. With this architecture Dynamic Languages now faster then running on CLR and easily communicate with other .NET objects!   IronPython WPF Error In my opinion IronPython Studio is not stable enough for production use. It does have the advantage of being integrated in Visual Studio so some people can't resist trying it out. (You can read my write-up of IronPython Studio at: IronPython Tools and IDEs .) If y

Jimmy Schementi is the Microsoft program manager for the integration of dynamic languages (IronPython and IronRuby) and the Silverlight browser plugin. As well as dynamic languages, Silverlight applications can be written in .NET languages like C# and VB.NET - and these languages can embed IronPython. Although embedding IronPython in a C# Silverlight application is initially straightforward (although a bit more verbose than embedding using the normal .NET framework / Mono as the ScriptRuntime needs to be configured), it gets painful fast. This is especially true when the Python code you execute needs to import anything, which has basically been broken on Silverlight for quite some time. In his latest blog entry Jimmy looks at how embedding from Silverlight has got simpler recently, and also at fixing the import problems. Embedding IronPython in Silverlight - Importing I’ve heard plenty of times on the IronPython Mailing List that embedding IronPython in Silverlight is easy at fi

More IronPython and DLR related projects, articles and news from around the web. Texas Holdem Hand Equity Calculation in IronPython  Greg Bray has been experimenting with using Resolver One to write Texas Holdem calculating spreadsheets with IronPython. In this blog entry he shows the IronPython code for calculating hand equity: This year I have been working in my free time to create easy to use Texas Holdem poker spreadsheets based on IronPython using Resolver One. These spreadsheets can be used to calculate Win/Tie/Loss odds, but some people like to use hand equity instead since it represents a player’s overall stake in the pot. Equity of 1.0 or 100% means that they will win the entire pot, where as equity of 0.5 (50%) or 0.25 (25%) means that they will split the pot with other players. You can again use Monte Carlo analysis to run a number of trials before all of the board cards are dealt to estimate a player’s current equity in the hand. This means that if during 4 trials I wo

PyCon 2010 , the annual international Python conference is coming soon (February 17th 2010 in Atlanta US). The schedule of talks is now up, and as usual there are several IronPython related talks . 67. IronPython Tooling  By Dino Veihland, core IronPython developer: One of the most popular requests for the IronPython team is tooling support. During this talk I’ll show you some of the existing tools available to help create IronPython applications. I’ll also look at the latest IronPython features which can help you debug, profile and improve your applications. I’ll also compare and contrast these with the solutions available for CPython that you may already be familiar with. 71. Python in the Browser By Jimmy Schementi (Microsoft program manager for IronPython / IronRuby Silverlight integration): You write your server code in Python because you want to. You write your browser code in JavaScript because you have to. But with IronPython and Silverlight, you can write your browser c

More IronPython and DLR related projects, articles and news from around the web. IronPython in Visual Studio 2010 Screenshot of syntax highlighting  Visual Studio 2010 doesn't come with IronPython support out of the box, but it does have extensive APIs for writing your own extensions. Jeff Hardy has taken up the challenge and has written a set of IronPython extensions for Visual Studio 2010 with syntax highlighting, regions etc. The project has binaries available : " Just double click the .vsix file to install. " StackOverflow DevDays Cambridge Review Diary of a schwag hag Cambridge Stack Overflow Dev Days At the end of October I attended the StackOverflow DevDays in Cambridge UK and spoke on Python and IronPython. I demonstrated .NET integration with IronPython by creating a simple Windows Forms application at the interactive interpreter. This was followed by going through Peter Norvig's Python Spell Checker as an example of concise Python code. Thanks to Ne

Microsoft Solver Foundation is a set of mathematical programming tools that can be used from .NET languages like C#, F# and IronPython: Solver Foundation Services (SFS) can automatically analyze models and determine which solver is most appropriate. If you are an advanced modeler, you can choose specific solvers and solver attributes. While solving the models, SFS manages all threading, many-core, synchronization, scheduling, and model execution issues. When finished, SFS produces reports about solver behavior and results, and provides additional information about solutions, including sensitivity. Finally, SFS allows LINQ data binding of model parameters and delivery of results in multiple formats. Lengning Liu has a blog entry on using the solver foundation from IronPython, including the magic incantations in app.config required to use plug in solvers. Using Solver Foundation and plug-in solvers in IronPython Solver Foundation provides an easy-to-use and flexible plug-in infras

One of the major use cases for IronPython is embedding in .NET applications to provide user scripting. The hosting APIs make it easy to experiment with embedding IronPython. Chris Umbel has written up a blog entry demonstrating the IronPython 2.6 hosting API and giving an example of exposing an API to Python scripts from a C# applications. Scripting Your .Net Applications with IronPython At several points in my .Net development career I've had the need to make an application I wrote scriptable. Sometimes it was to provide easy product extension to customers or lower level information workers. Sometimes it was to ease maintenance of very fine grained logic that has the capacity to change frequently or unpredictably. But every time I found it to be one of the more interesting facets of the project at hand. Early in .Net's history this was made easy by using Visual Studio for Applications (VSA) which allowed you to host arbitrary C# or VB.Net code within the executing AppDom

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is part of .NET 3 and makes creating and interacting with web services from C# substantially easier. WCF makes extensive use of .NET attributes, making it difficult to use from IronPython versions before 2.6 without wrapping the use of attributes in some C#. IronPython 2.6 brings in support for attributes through the __clrtype__ metaclass. It doesn't yet allow you to create a .NET interface from pure Python code (although you can implement existing interfaces just by inheriting from them), so * some * C# is still needed for full use of WCF with IronPython 2.6. The dynamic languages team are looking at ways that __clrtype__ could be extended to allow the creation of interfaces in a future release. In his latest blog post Lukáš Čenovský demonstrates how to create a WCF service from C# and then shows the same code from IronPython, along with the minimal C# still needed. A WCF Service from IronPython Until IronPython 2.6, it was not possi

Charlie Calvert is Community Program Manager for the C# group at Microsoft. He has posted a couple of blog entries on using IronPython. The first shows you how to get started with IronPython on Windows, including setting up your path to easily execute Python scripts with ipy.exe. The second entry shows how to execute a Python file from C# when embedding the IronPython engine. Getting Started with IronPython I recently spent some time getting IronPython up and running on my system; I will review what I learned in this post. Hosted inside an interpreter, Python belongs to the same family of scripting tools as VBScript, JavaScript, Perl and Ruby. You can fairly compare Python to a general purpose language such as C#. Developers praise this loosely typed, dynamic language for its ease of use and rapid development capabilities. IronPython is Microsoft’s free version of the open source Python language. IronPython can be hosted inside a C# program as a scripting language. Nonetheless,

The Loose XAML blog has posted an interesting article profiling some IronPython code and the semantically identical C# and C code (for generating the fibonnaci series). He comes to the unsurprising conclusion that C# is substantially faster, but digs deeper into the results to try and work out why. An interesting discussion ensues in the comments. Performance of IronPython vs. C#  I’ve been using IronPython for a while, and every now and then I do a cursory check to see how it’s performs against the equivalent C# code. C# is generally a touch faster at most logic, but IronPython is faster at dynamic invocation of methods than reflection in C#. In general it’s a wash…over the course of an application you dabble in things that different languages are better optimized to handle. When performance is a wash, you get the freedom to choose entirely based on the features of each language, which is nice. This was going well, until I had a need to do some recursion. I found that the recursiv

Active directory is one of the standard (and important) parts of a Windows network. Working with active directory is therefore a common task for a Windows system administrator. Naturally you can work with active directory from Python , but there is also good support for active directory in the .NET framework that can be accessed from IronPython (including from IronPython on Mono). This is something that Brendan McAdams has been exploring on the Evil Monkey Labs blog and has created a utility module to make it even easier: Talking to ActiveDirectory from (Iron)Python ad_util.py on github  We're building a new intranet system at work, and I've been toying with a few things that the Windows admin asked for. Namely, since the secretaries here will update the intranet data to add people's Work & Emergency contact numbers, AIM handles, email addresses, etc. that we find a way to keep it all in sync with ActiveDirectory. Thereby keeping all the Outlooks and Blackberries up

FDO Toolbox is an open source " multi-purpose geospatial tool to create, analyse, process and manage spatial data. It is written in C# and uses the Feature Data Objects (FDO) API ". Going on from his success at the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference in Sydney, the main developer has announced a new version that includes IronPython scripting support for extending the toolbox. FDO Toolbox 0.8.7 (Fresh from FOSS4G) Here's a new release of FDO Toolbox, fresh from the FOSS4G 2009 conference. This was the exact build I was demonstrating during the presentation, which went better than I expected. The new main features include: IronPython Scripting With the introduction of a IronPython scripting engine, FDO Toolbox now has a 2nd extensibility point. You can now customise and drive FDO Toolbox through python scripts. I will be posting some example scripts in the near future to demonstrate what can be done with a scripting engine. The side-effect of

More IronPython and DLR related projects, articles and news from around the web. Small PIL for IronPython  One of the disadvantages of developing with IronPython, particularly for using existing libraries and codebases, is that C extensions don't work. One possibility is to use Ironclad , a C extension compatibility layer by Resolver Systems. Another one is to find or create a compatible API using .NET libraries. An important C extension in the Python world, virtually ubiquitous where images are used and manipulated, is the Python Imaging Library . All sorts of other projects (Django and Reportlab for example) use PIL, causing problems for using them from IronPython. A Japanese blogger has * started * to solve this problem by creating an IronPython project called "small pil" implementing part of the PIL API for IronPython. Changes to Dialogue Script in December 2009  i-Dialogue is a "Customer Experience Management" application by Cubic Compass. It is relev

In March I spoke at the  QCon London 2009 conference on "Real World IronPython". InfoQ has just put up a video of the presentation, including the slides and a demo of "Resolver One", the highly programmable spreadsheet system created by Resolver Systems with IronPython. Real World IronPython Summary Michael Foord discusses IronPython, the DLR, dynamic languages on .Net, static vs. dynamic typing, Visual Studio integration, Resolver One, Intellipad, Crack.net, embedding IronPython, the ScriptEngine, error handling, dynamic operations, functions as delegates, and the C# 4.0 dynamic keyword. Bio Michael Foord works full time with IronPython for Resolver Systems ; creating a highly programmable spreadsheet called Resolver One. He has been using IronPython since about version 0.7, and has been developing with Python since 2002. He blogs and writes about Python and IronPython far more than is healthy for one individual and in 2008 was made the first Microsoft MVP f

Yet another collection of IronPython and DLR related articles, projects and blog entries from the past few weeks. NTornado NTornado is an IronPython version of the Tornando web server. The Tornado Web Server is the open source version of the non-blocking web server that power FriendFeed and now part of the Facebook's open source initiative. This server is coded in Python and with strong emphasis on operating systems with epoll support. NTornado is a port of Tornado to IronPython using asynchronous high-performance sockets in .NET. To run the demos (requires IronPython 2.6): > ipy -X:Frames "demo file name".py Getting WPF Control Template in IronPython I always find myself needing a control template so I can customize one of the WPF controls. I used to fire up Expression Blend to get it, and then realized I could write a little IronPython code to do it. Paste this code into the IronPython 2.0 or 2.6 console to see it work! Modulo .NET test con IronPython  A tr