Archive for June, 2009
No REST from reading!
I just received IronPython In Action and cant wait to tear into it, I just have to get RESTful.Net off the bedside table and I’m good to go. Not since NServiceBus fell across my path have I been this excited (not that I am comparing them). If only there was a book on NServiceBus? Udi what say thou? The world is ready for it…
Why I chose IronPython over IronRuby in the end.
Initially when I made the decision that I would benefit from learning a new language that adhered to a different paradigm (dynamically typed), I selected IronRuby over IronPython simply because I had seen it first and perhaps got caught up a little in the industry hype and good PR going on.
After having spent a less than insignificant amount of time invested in IronRuby I decided to bite the bullet and invest the effort into IronPython instead and the reasons were entirely pragmatic. Microsoft seem to be putting more effort into IronPython, has already found it’s way into other stacks, such as Oslo’s Intellipad (which I plan to leverage) and it’s significantly more mature than IronRuby.
I am constantly finding uses for IronPython in my work and the list of problems that it’s going to help solve is growing quickly. As a side note, if you are looking to use IronPython and are ready to let the experience pass you by because of lack of IDE support then check out using NetBeans (for Python) and instead using IronPython. As previously detailed by Steven and David, you can use the NetBeans Tools menu and make the selection ‘Python Platforms’, then you can configure a new default platform setting and redirect the IDE to use IronPython (see above screenshot). I haven’t used this configuration for long but for now it seems to work nicely.
Which DLR language should I choose? Is it now IronRuby vs. IronPython.
This post is not about creating a language zealot’s war – let me make that absolutely clear from the outset. What this post is about is a question, how does one go about making their minds up in choosing a language for developing in the dynamic world of the DLR?
For my part so far I have delved into IronRuby and started to employ it for scripting my C# applications. Why did I choose IronRuby over IronPython? It began with curiosity in the Ruby language in general and led inevitably to IronRuby. I quickly acquired a taste for Ruby but there is something nagging in the back of my mind and I can’t get to the bottom of it - “did I choose the right language” and really after all “does it matter which one I choose?”
Given Pythons relationship to C and my emotional connection to the C family of languages, would IronPython have been a better choice? Certainly IronPython is further down the track and more mature than IronRuby at this stage, but what does that count for at this early stage? All these questions make me curious for some other opinions which I would leave to hear right here, so please tell me – what do you think? What criteria would you use to make a choice?
