IronPython URLs

Another collection of IronPython and DLR related articles from around the web. A fine way to end 2009. SLog: Silverlight Logging A nascent project to Port Log(4|5)J from Java to C# with the goal of usefulness in Silverlight, especially for IronPython. A WPF Picture Viewer NotifyIcon to use from IronPython  Two Japanese blog entries, both by sasakima-nao. As with previous entries the code examples are very readable. The first is a simple WPF picture viewer (nice penguins) and the second shows how to create a NotifyIcon and ContextMenu in the taskbar (with Windows Forms classes). Python-Ruby (and a little bit of soap) This blog entry is in Russian, but I think there are enough code examples for it to be useful for those of us who don't speak Russian. As I've mentioned before the promise of the Dynamic Language Runtime is that dynamic languages can interoperate and share libraries. This is exactly what this blog entry shows: using the Ruby soap/wsdlDriver from Python.

My belief is that the answer to the question in the title of this entry is an emphatic yes. Microsoft have poured a lot of money into IronPython, IronRuby and the Dynamic Language Runtime and have demonstrated a consistent commitment since the inception of IronPython. What they haven't done is build full support into their premier development tool, Visual Studio. The reason for this is that it is a very difficult problem. Visual Studio is built around statically typed languages. Features like intellisense, refactoring and code navigation all rely on having type information which is absent in languages like Python and Ruby. (The way they are implemented in Visual Studio requires that information I mean.) What Microsoft have done is provide example integration in the form of IronPython Studio, which frankly sucks . Many important features are fragile, broken or missing altogether. Good IDEs like PyDev and Wing do provide these features, so it is definitely possible - it just requi

Ironclad is a compatibility layer that allows you to use Python C extensions with IronPython. Ironclad is open source and development has been funded by Resolver Systems and it is integrated into Resolver One to allow you to use Numpy within Resolver One spreadsheets . Ironclad works by implementing the Python C API in a combination of C#, C and Python. Although Ironclad only works on 32 bit Windows at the moment the implementation has been done in such a way that porting it to run on other platforms (with Mono) and 64 bit would be relatively easy. Patches welcomed! Recent development has changed the implementation to use gcc-xml to access and transform the Python C source code. By reusing as much of the original implementation as possible it minimizes the amount that needs to be 'hand-coded'. It leaves only a (moderately) small core that would need to be reimplemented if Jython, PyPy (or other implementations) wanted to reuse Ironclad. The C# would need to be re-coded

More IronPython and DLR related projects, articles and news from around the web. Embedded IronRuby and IronPython in Silverlight with Multiple Source Files A  nice example of embedding both IronPython and IronRuby in a single C# project. As an added bonus the project is a Silverlight project so you can add both Python and Ruby scripting to applications that run in the browser. slimtune: A free profiling and performance tuning tool for .NET applications IronPython 2.6 has useful new hooks for profiling and debugging IronPython code. Unfortunately most 'standard' .NET tools don't know how to use these, and if you attempt to profile IronPython code (particularly in an embedded environment) you have to work hard to get useful information about performance of your Python code. It's nice to see a new (and open source) tool that is designed to work with IronPython: SlimTune is a free profiler and performance analysis/tuning tool for .NET based applications, including C#

IronPython and the Dynamic Language Runtime make it almost ridiculously easy to add scripting to .NET applications. In recent weeks several examples of using IronPython to add scripting or interactive shells to .NET applications have been posted by the .NET community: Command-line scripting of IronPython code in AutoCAD This post was heavily inspired by the code presented by my old friend Albert Szilvasy during his excellent AU class on using .NET 4.0 with AutoCAD . ... In this post we’ll take Albert’s technique and implement a command-line interface for querying and executing IronPython script. This approach could also be adapted to work with other DLR languages such as IronRuby, of course. Here’s the updated C# code which now not only implements PYLOAD functionality, but also a PYEXEC command.   Scriptability via the DLR and PostSharp  Making an application scriptable (particularly in a static language) has historically been difficult. With the advent of the DLR (Dynamic La

Tarn Barford is an Australian blogger and programmer who uses IronPython. He's created a Google App Engine site for experimenting with IronPython in the browser (through Silverlight). PythonSilverScripting: Scripting Python Silverlight Applications PythonSilverScripting lowers the barriers to building Silverlight applications so anyone from high school kids to seasoned programmers can have fun writing Silverlight applications in Python from within a browser! Below is a simple script that creates a Silverlight application, sets the background blue and adds a TextBlock element with the text "Hello World". He's also blogged about the new site, including his future plans for it: Creating Silverlight apps in the browser PythonSilverScripting is based on crazy idea I have that it should be possible to make Silverlight applications in Python on the web. No tools, no SDKs.. just a browser (and obviously the Silverlight browser plug-in). I've played around a bit w

I recently wrote an article for the UK MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) newsletter called Why IronPython? This article made it into the collection of the thirteen best technical articles of 2009: You can download these articles as a free ebook in XPS or PDF format, or read it online: FREE MSDN Flash eBook of the best 13 technical articles of 2009 The UK MSDN Flash developer newsletter contains great short technical articles written by UK developers both inside Microsoft and in the broader developer community. This eBook pulls together these great articles in one place. There are thirteen articles in this second edition covering Python, Inversion of Control, Behavior Driven Development, Silverlight and more. The MSDN Flash newsletter is run by Eric Nelson. He also has a podcast and we recorded an episode together about Python, IronPython, PyCon and various other topics: MSDN Flash Podcast 018 – Michael Foord discusses IronPython A great chat with Michael Foord, author of IronP

The Dynamic Language Runtime is a framework for writing dynamic languages that run on the .NET framework, with the two "Microsoft sponsored" languages being IronPython and IronRuby. There is also IronScheme , a community project hosted on Codeplex. The promise of the DLR is not just that it makes implementing dynamic languages possible , but also that through the DLR .NET languages can interoperate. This includes IronPython and IronRuby (etc) interacting with C#, F# and VB.NET (the supported and statically typed Microsoft .NET languages) but also the reverse (statically typed languages interoperating with dynamically typed languages) and dynamically typed languages interoperating amongst themselves. All very incestuous. As far as I know this is still unique amongst the modern polyglot runtimes (.NET and Mono, the JVM, LLVM, Parrot and so on). Whilst IronRuby in particular has been changing very rapidly (IronRuby has only recently reached 1.0 RC 1) it has been hard to g

This is a short article I wrote for the UK MSDN Flash newsletter (a Microsoft newsletter for developers). Unfortunately the online versions of these newsletters aren't being updated at the moment; so instead of linking to it I'm reproducing it here. Why IronPython? One of the new features in .NET 4.0 is the dynamic keyword, building on the Dynamic Language Runtime. A major reason for dynamic is to enable easier interaction with dynamic languages like IronPython. But if you're a dyed in the wool C# or VB.NET programmer why should you be interested in IronPython? Much of the discussion here applies to other dynamic languages, including IronRuby, but Python is my particular area of expertise. IronPython is a .NET implementation of the popular open source programming language Python. Python is an expressive language that is easy to learn and supports several different programming styles; interactive, scripting, procedural, functional

Thanks to Jimmy Schementi (the new IronPython PM, Ruby lover and all round good guy) IronPython has a new website. And as said best on Reddit , it doesn't look like Microsoft made it. The site has links to documentation, community resources and online IronPython examples using Silverlight (including Try Python ). IronPython gets a long overdue website! IronPython.net CodePlex will continue to be the tool we use for project management and releases, but all end-user information will be on IronPython.net. Also, the .com domain still points at the super-old site, but will redirect to this site shortly. The most notably addition is the .NET Integration Documentation, a thorough set of examples and descriptions of using IronPython with .NET. Considering this is IronPython’s main purpose, it’s amazing we got away with having hardly no documentation for this long … I guess the .NET integration is just that intuitive :) Anyway, please give it a read and let us know if you have any sug

In previous blog entries Lukáš Čenovský looked into Databinding and WCF Services with IronPython 2.6 . This uses the new __clrtype__ feature in IronPython 2.6 to interact with .NET features that previously couldn't be done with IronPython. In this follow up blog entry Lukáš shows how to saved the IronPython interface in an assembly with a config file. WCF Service in pure IronPython with config file I was wrong when I wrote in the last post that the IronPython service cannot be saved into an assembly. It can. Which opens a way to use .config file to configure the service. The interface is the same as in the previous version. The only difference in the service to the previous version is in the ServiceHost initialization - we omit the service configuration parameters because they are in the .config file. I also changed the clr namespace.

Jeff Hardy is a big cheese in the IronPython world. One of his older projects is NWSGI, an implementation of the Python WSGI (Web Server Gateway Interface) specification for .NET. This allows Python WSGI applications to run on IronPython and be served by IIS. One of his newer projects is an extension of Visual Studio 2010 (still in beta) to provide Python syntax highlighting and IronPython support. Jeff has recently announced progress in both projects. NWSGI 2.0 Release Candidate 2   The final release candidate of NWSGI 2.0 is now available. Except for version numbers, this is what will become NWSGI 2.0 as soon as IronPython 2.6 is released. NWSGI 2.0 Release Candidate 2 includes all of the features of NWSGI 2.0 Release Candidate 1, and adds support configuring tracing, lightweight scopes, and the profiler. It is built against IronPython 2.6 RC3. The following issues are fixed in this release: Add configuration option for Profiler Add configuration option for Lightweight S

IronPython 2.6 is finally out! IronPython 2.6 is a new version of IronPython targeting compatibility with Python 2.6. As well as the new language and library features that come with Python 2.6, IronPython 2.6 has new features for improved performance, general Python compatibility and better .NET integration. It's a great release; congratulations and thanks to the IronPython team. Download IronPython 2.6 IronPython Samples for IronPython 2.6   Performance Comparison: IronPython 2.6 Final and CPython 2.6  IronPython 2.6 final is identical to release candidate 3. Features new to IronPython in version 2.6 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 (and better debugging from the .NET side) Better performance through adaptive compilation Faster startup There are several changes to the samples in IronPython 2.6. These

Gestalt is a project by Mix Online to use Silverlight and the Dynamic Language Runtime to allow you to script web pages with Python or Ruby instead of with Javascript. The Gestalt Project DLR.js is a library released by a collaborative effort between the Dynamic Language Runtime team and MIX Online Labs. This JavaScript library allows you to write Ruby, Python & XAML code in your (X)HTML pages. It enables you to build richer and more powerful web applications by marrying the benefits of expressive languages, modern compilers, AJAX & RIAs with the write » save » refresh development model of the web.  Gestalt has reached a significant milestone with the release of version 1.0 and a widget pack. It has matured to the point where you can do really crazy things like run Rails *in your browser*. Probably not specifically useful, but it shows what it is capable of: Introducing Gestalt 1.0 and the Gestalt Widget Pack A few months ago, we released Gestalt beta as a MIX Online lab.