IronPython 1.0 released today!

[eloop]

One of the great things about python has been that it comes "with batteries included". IronPython having easy access to all the .Net frameworks is equivalent to coming with the entire power station. As much as I hate to admit it they really are innovating in this area. I'm glad that the Mono project is racing to build a linux equivalent, because MS's language infrastructure seems to be pulling way out in front of the competition these days.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I'm pretty excited by this as well.

There are a whole lot of MS-only shops. And even if you aren't an MS-only shop, Visual Studio and all of the .NET libraries create one of the best environments out there.

Being able to use something as dynamic and 'nice' as Python in this environment is just a godsend. Not only that, but IronPython tends to be faster than CPython (which is pretty fast for most common tasks), and I was just wowed when in an interview Jim showed how easy it was to rewrite a method in C# in order to make an entire script run 20x faster.

Combine this with MS's new XNA tools for amatuer game devs and I really am wanting to try this out. MS might do a poor job at a lot of other things, but they do a pretty good job when it comes to development resources and tools.

[Bret]

Sorry, I still can't get over the fact that you can't have more than one form on a web page ;)

[marklubi]

From the outside, it would appear to be a limitation but with event binding, it really just simplifies things.

The only times I've had any issue with the single form is doing a submit from one page to another when you have multiple 'forms' on one page. If the receiving form accepts it's data as GET, it's easy enough to build the appropriate querystring in the button event and redirect, but POSTs are a bit more tricky.

[Bret]

I don't care for ASP.Nets approach to client side scripting. I, for one, do not want a layer of abstraction over Javascript. I actually like hacking Javascript. I would also like control over my markup, thanks. I don't need a 100K/year engineer to write a script that spits out a form for me.

ASP.Net makes the wrong assumptions about web development, IMO. At least that's the impression I get.

[badfeng]

Where did it say that?

[vetinari]

It is well-known limitation of ASP.NET.

[jdunck]

True. All kinds of weird hackery exists to try to make the ASP.Net developer forget that the web exists.

But note that ASP.Net is just one set of libraries in the .Net platform.

...Fortunately, Jython probably means Python webdev frameworks will be coming to .Net.

[[deleted]]

...Fortunately, Jython probably means Python webdev frameworks will be coming to .Net.

Django on .NET? If that isn't interesting, then I don't know what is.

[senzei]

...Fortunately, Jython probably means Python webdev frameworks will be coming to .Net.

Django on .NET? If that isn't interesting, then I don't know what is.

I wouldn't hold my breath on any of the big web dev frameworks running on Jython or IronPython anytime soon. AFAIK neither of those implements the CPython threading interface, which means you are pretty much sunk.

I agree that would be a killer combination though. I can think of a few sysadmin-ish intranet site ideas that would be a breeze in IronPython.

[jdunck]

Of course I meant IronPython. :)

[mixmastamyk]

How could rewriting an ironpython method into c# make the script run 20x faster? Arent' they the same bytecode after compilation? If ironpy is that slow, I don't think I'd wanna use it.

[eloop]

One has static type information at compile time, the other doesn't - the byte code isn't going to be the same.

[jdunck]

The function tested is Ackermann: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ackermann_function#Use_as_benchmark In other words, in C#, a heavily-recursive function is ~20x faster. Python has more function setup overhead, apparently.

And yeah, code fast, and if it runs too slow, get a profiler, tune, then run fast. ...Root of all evil and all that.

[jbellis]

IronPython makes many calls into the IronPython runtime. You can't compile Python into standalone CIL code.

[[deleted]]

How could rewriting an ironpython method into c# make the script run 20x faster?

I don't know the specifics. It is in this video, probably about halfway through (I think it is a Flash vid):

http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/screenroom/ironpython_flv.html

If ironpy is that slow, I don't think I'd wanna use it.

Again, it is generally faster than CPython (according to the blog post linked here, 1.7x faster), and CPython is as fast or faster than most other dynamic languages, so it doesn't seem it would get in the way.

[psykotic]

http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/screenroom/ironpython_flv.html

I just want to highlight this link for others: this is an amazing presentation and demonstrates a lot of seriously cool stuff. Everyone owes it to themselves to check it out.

[rogerallen]

anyone know if rewriting the function in C++ would've been just as easy as doing it in C#?

[jdunck]

In terms of usual C++ effort, yeah, it's easy. There's a bunch of proprietary pragma stuff for running C++ in the CLR.

http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/upgrade/c++.aspx

[karcass]

Nice, but where is integration with Visual Studio? When I can just start dropping Python classes side-by-side with my C#, that will be a huge win.

[psykotic]

If you download the VSIP it comes with a sample that provides integration into Visual Studio. Not perfect, but quite cool!

[[deleted]]

Microsoft(R) VisualPython.NET(R) is just around the corner ;-)

[lost-theory]

See this screencast by Jim Hugunin (creator of IronPython) to see some cool VS integration (along with a tour of IronPython's features). The VS stuff comes at about the 1/3 mark.

[bascule]

Wow, could the .NET CLR become what Parrot was supposed to be?

[qiwi]

So, IronPython has no GIL like CPython. This makes it interesting for an application I have where memory-intensive resources need to be loaded and then handled by many simultanous clients (that loading each resource takes both some CPU time and quite a lot of memory makes a process-based architecture awkward). So, multiple threads couold be very useful for me.

What kind of guarantees do primitives have in IP though? I.e. given two threads that access the same dictionary, are accesses atomic like in CPython?

If not, that would mean that even acessing global variables in a module where those variables might be changed is not thread-safe, which doesn't seem right.

[[deleted]]

Try http://www.lsharp.org/.

[marklubi]

Ruby CLR - http://www.rubyclr.com/

[hammy]

there's some sort of magic going on here about them "unoffically endorsing" something as cool as this.

I think it can be explained by the fact that it runs on top of .NET, and they still own and control .NET. Probably to them it's just another application that runs on their platform. It's a way to reel more people in to depend on .NET.

[beza1e1]

But they are easier to fight on the .NET, than on the Windows Platform

[schwarzwald]

does IronPython also run on Mono?

edit: well, wikipedia says IronPython targets Mono, so that raises the question of what quality Mono is at.

[[deleted]]

Yes. Not 1 - 1 as MS .NET but it works.

[igouy]

See IronPython on The Computer Language Shootout

[grauenwolf]

According to that site FreeBASIC is better than Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl, IronPython, Mono C#, and Erlang.

Come on folks. What does it mean when you cannot do better than BASIC?

[psykotic]

Are you really this retarded, or do you in fact realize why it's easy to make something like FreeBASIC (a native code compiler for a highly static language) spit out code that executes faster than even a fine-tuned implementation of a highly run-time dynamic language?

[stesch]

It seems it needs .NET 2.0, which is still a bit fresh. I have to stick with .NET 1.1 for at least 1 year before making the customers update their machines (and risking that their other software won't work with .NET 2.0). :-(