Apress: Pro IronPython

By Michael Foord -
IronPython in Action is on its way to the printer, and when it is finally available in real paper in about 4 weeks (final ebook available any day now) it will be the first English book on IronPython.

Various other publishers have been asking around the IronPython community for a while now (including O'Reilly which is ironic given that after promising to come back to me I never heard anything more from them when I first pitched them 2 1/2 years ago - ha! I've been very happy with Manning though and so glad things went the way they did), and finally Apress have announced an IronPython book. In the interests of balance (despite managing to make this blog entry entirely about my book so far) here are the details:
IronPython represents a unique direction for developers interested in working with dynamic languages within the .NET Framework. Whether you’re looking to develop applications from scratch or add functionality and maintainability to an existing application, IronPython opens many doors while providing a high–speed, high–performance language that integrates tightly with other .NET languages.

Learn to create applications using the benefits of a dynamically typed language.
Discover how to leverage the power of IronPython to improve existing applications.
Explore interacting with other .NET languages by invoking the common language runtime.

What you’ll learn
  • Write IronPython console and forms applications.
  • Integrate IronPython scripts into existing applications to increase their functionality.
  • Implement complex data patterns and interact with databases.
  • Use the common language runtime to take advantage of .NET’s existing framework within IronPython scripts.
  • Understand how IronPython can be brought in to solve a variety of programming tasks through extensive exercises and recipes.
  • Avoid the common pitfalls of working with a dynamically typed language.
Who is this book for?
This book is designed for .NET developers interested in expanding their IronPython skills and learning how to make use of them to improve their daily programming practices. It will introduce core concepts of IronPython programming using a .NET–centric approach. Additionally, it will speak to Python developers looking to expand into their skills into the .NET world. Experience with a .NET language is expected. Previous Python experience is not necessary.

Author Information
Alan Harris
Alan Harris is a web and application developer living in Arlington, VA. He has worked at more than a few organizations using .NET to create enterprise solutions since the glory days of version 1.1, and can still browse to some of the oldest ones. Aside from working at his desk, he spends most of his time studying Krav Maga and writing music.
According to Amazon the book will be out in June, in which case we'll beat it by a few months - but unless the book has been in progress for a while it is likely that it will be out later. I've not heard of Alan before and I'll definitely be reading the book when it comes out.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Extending Abobe Flash Player and AIR with Python and Ruby

By Michael Foord -
An intriguing blog entry about an Adobe experimental project. It is a C/C++ cross- compiler for the flash player and AIR. This means that you can (will be able to?) cross-compile the Python / Ruby/ lots of other language runtimes and then run them in Flash. The blog entry contrasts this approach to the DLR which requires the re-implementation of dynamic languages - hence IronPython and IronRuby. The project is already beyond proof-of concept, they even have Quake III cross-compiled and running in Flash. Extending Adobe Flash Player and AIR with C/C++ Cross-Compiler Quake 3 has already been ported to managed code , but this is even more impressive. Whether the Python interpreter can be cross-compiled to run on top of another runtime (with completely different basic types), without changing the language semantics at all, has yet to be proved - but it is a very interesting project. (It also means that Python/Ruby will possibly be enabled only by additional optional downloads - but don'
Read more

Should Python Projects Support IronPython and Jython?

By Michael Foord -
The maintainers of the Spring Framework for Python ( Spring Python ) wonder how much of a priority it is to have compatibility with platforms other than CPython. In other words, should they support IronPython and Jython - and if so what should they do about their C extension dependencies? This question sparks a good discussion and is relevant to many other Python projects and applications: Need for supporting IronPython, Jython? " One of the topics on my mind recently, as we consider refactoring the core container, is how we ensure that when we introduce internal dependencies, such as possibly the Amara libraries for XML processing, what secondary constraints we might be introducing. " " For example, Amara represents a very pythonic and therefore simple to read and use approach to developing XML processing, such as our very own XML application configuration parsers. So from that perspective, things are very attractive. But then you ask the question, "can I run this
Read more

Further Adventures of the Debugger

By Michael Foord -
Harry Pierson (Microsoft IronPython PM) has been experimenting with writing an IronPython debugger ( ipydbg ) on top of the .NET MDbg APIs. When we last left him , he had implemented Just My Code (JMC) support allowing you to step into IronPython code. Since then he has made a lot of progress including a colourful REPL (interactive console) and solving some difficult problems around getting to real values behind boxed IronPython variables (needed for showing local variables). He has blogged extensively on what he has been up to (more recent posts last): Showing Source Code Colorful Console IronPython ConsoleColorMgr (the colorful console code pulled out into a separate IronPython module) A Little Hack...err...Cleanup Getting Local Variables Displaying Values Command Routing Getting Arguments REPL Console A lot of functionality is now present. In the command routing entry Harry outlines the seven commands supported by the debugger so far: Continue, Quit, Show Stack Trace, Show Locals,
Read more