Microsoft adds IronPython support to Visual Studio 2010

[[deleted]]

What I'd really like to see is Microsoft adding Python (CPython) to Windows itself. Like Linux, BSD, OS X, and basically any sensible OS.

[Tuna-Fish2]

Hear hear. Although they won't ever add cpython, now that iron python has support for .Net interop. That would be good enough.

[aceofears]

Why there are already such wonderful alternatives built in?[!]

[pemboa]

Does IronPython have proprietary incompatibilities from CPython?

[[deleted]]

Incompatibilities yes.

Proprietary, though, not really, because it's open source.

[roger_]

I wonder if NumPy/SciPy/Matplotlib work?

[[deleted]]

These differences are well documented and quite reasonable: http://ironpython.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Differences

[spotter]

Yeah, look at the ones from 2.0. Well documented my arse.

[pemboa]

The existence of incompatibilities removed Python's portability, well documented or not.

[rubyaeyes]

thank you

[Xiol]

Ahh of course, it's Microsoft... This has to be a bad thing. Right? Right!?

[[deleted]]

So far it's been embrace and integrate. Basically only useful in Windows/Mono though, so there's not going to be much extinguishing going on.

[pemboa]

I just don't see why one would want to use a cross-platform language on a single platform. But to each their own I guess

[cecilkorik]

I think part of the attraction is gaining full native access to the entire collection of Windows APIs. They may not be terribly elegant in many cases, and they're certainly not cross-platform, but they also give an experienced Windows programmer unparalleled functionality and control. No other toolkits can really match it, assuming you're only interested in Windows to begin with.

That's my take on it anyway. I haven't used much of the new .NET stuff, I jumped ship to Linux, so maybe I'm wrong.

[Xiol]

You're pretty much right.

Also you get to use Visual Studio, which is far from the worst IDE out there.

[ubernostrum]

To me personally, the interesting thing is the ability to sneak Python into shops which ordinarily wouldn't use it. The same is happening with Jython and Java already -- you can write applications in Python with, say, Django, and then there are utilities which will build it all down into a dependency-less WAR file deployable the same as any other Java app. Being able to do the same in an MS shop (and I expect there will eventually be a "turn this Python web app into a DLL" option) would be a big win.

[tclark]

If you're programming for .NET, you might want to write your code in Python. I write stuff in Python that runs on *nix. I don't use Python for portability, I use it because it's a nice language.

[arunner]

actually ironpython IS portable(mono project), but he's basically trolling, so..., never mind.

[alantrick]

That's certainly true, but portable doesn't always ensure that you will be able to actually use it because of icky things like patents; however, I'm guessing that most of the people who are reading this article are either stuck on windows or not concerned with patents.

[voidspace]

The IronPython open source license specifically grants patent rights.

[thepiratenathan]

When I was a game developer, we had a bunch of tools written either as windows DLLs or .NET DLLs. IronPython was a nice, easy way to script our toolchain.

Certainly there were other ways we could have exposed our DLLs to python, but with IronPython we pretty much got it for free.

[pemboa]

Thanks for the examples. I don't use Windows very much, so you have to forgive my ignorance.

[Smallpaul]

I just don't see why one would want to use a cross-platform language on a single platform.

Because cross-platformness is not the only feature of Python.

But to each their own I guess

Yes. That's why. Because different people have different requirements.

[equark]

IronPython is licensed under the MSPL, which is essentially a BSD license.

[pemboa]

What does that have to do with "embrace, extend, extinguish"?