IronPython at PyCon and the Python Language Summit

By Michael Foord -
PyCon 2009 - the international Python conference in Chicago - is rapidly approaching.

Harry Pierson (Microsoft IronPython Program Manager) has blogged about how IronPython features this year:
Harry also mentions the difficulties he's had in getting the Microsoft Gold Sponsorship for PyCon actually into the hands of the PSF. (Python Software Foundation - who as well as running the conference also own the copyright on the Python code and the trademarks etc).

As well as talks on tutorials covering IronPython, PyCon starts this year with a Python Language Summit. This is the first time this has been tried:

The Python Language Summit is an invitation-only event for developers of Python implementations and the standard library, to be held at PyCon 2009 in Chicago, on Thursday March 26 2009. The coordinator for this summit is Andrew Kuchling.
Attendees will not deliver formal presentations. Instead, the Summit will be a series of sessions focusing on specific issues. After a 5-10 minute presentation by a session leader, the attendees will concentrate on discussing issues and deciding upon actions to take.
Both Dino and I will be there, with a particular interest in how Python can better support alternative implementations. One of the sessions particularly addresses this issue:
What do the various VMs want/need from CPython to help with their implementations?
  • Marking CPython-specific tests in the test suite?
  • Getting an implementation agnostic test suite for the Python language?
  • Separating the language tests and the pure Python part of the standard library into a separate project? (Or publish them as a separate package.)
  • Transition plans for 3.0?
Session leader: Frank Wierzbicki of Jython.
The language summit isn't the only new addition to PyCon. There is (running concurrently - very topical) a VM summit for those developing Virtual Machines for dynamic languages. Ivan Kristic has details on his blog:
It is a free, full-day, invite-only event intended to bring together people doing cutting edge work on implementing virtual machines for dynamic programming languages. It’s not designed to be a dog-and-pony show but a hardcore, technical working session.

We’ll have representatives of the CPython, PyPy, GemStone MagLev, Rubinius, Mozilla TraceMonkey, Parrot, Sun Da Vinci Machine, Microsoft DLR, Jython and JRuby communities, with several more being approached.
Very exciting, hopefully see you at PyCon.

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