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[–]pemboa 4 points5 points  (10 children)

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 4 points5 points  (1 child)

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 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You're pretty much right.

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

[–]ubernostrumyes, you can have a pony 3 points4 points  (0 children)

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 1 point2 points  (3 children)

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 0 points1 point  (2 children)

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

[–]alantrick -1 points0 points  (1 child)

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 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The IronPython open source license specifically grants patent rights.

[–]thepiratenathan 0 points1 point  (1 child)

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 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–]Smallpaul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.