Executing IronPython Code from IronRuby

By Michael Foord -
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 get versions of both languages built on the same version of the DLR. However recent builds have tended to include compatible versions of the other language, making it a bit easier.

IronShay (Shay Friedman) has written a blog entry demonstrating how IronPython and IronRuby can share code and use each others libraries:
 One of the advantages of the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) is the fact that it makes sharing code between the languages that are written on top of it (and on top of the CLR as well). Therefore, it is possible to share code between IronPython and IronRuby (and any other DLR language as well like IronScheme).

This means that IronPython libraries can be used from IronRuby code and vice versa. Ruby on Rails in Python? Django in Ruby? feels like the end of days, isn’t it? perhaps we should really start preparing to year 2012…

In this post I’ll show you how to run simple IronPython code from IronRuby so you can take it and do whatever your imagination guides you to.

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