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Wrestling With Python


By Larry O'Brien
March 1, 2006 — 
There’s an infamous quote attributed to the developers of Python for .NET to the effect that the CLI supports “any language as long as it’s C#.” Even within Microsoft, the C++ team had to face the challenge of integrating .NET with an object model with different memory, copy and inheritance semantics. On the other hand, Python-ista Jim Hugunin set out to document the shortcomings of the CLI for dynamic languages and ended up, first, concluding that it was a good platform and, second, joining Microsoft to work with the CLI team.

One of the major improvements to the .NET 2.0 runtime was an improved facility for “lightweight code generation,” whereby methods that are generated at runtime can be garbage-collected like other objects. A year ago, this seemed solely for the benefit of languages such as Python. Once again, though, if you consider the needs of LINQ, lightweight code generation is important to that effort.

Multiple commercial languages support .NET (including Borland’s Delphi and Eiffel from ISE), and there have been a few non-mainstream language projects such as IronPython (Hugunin’s .NET Python, a beta of which is available from www.microsoft.com/downloads and which is integrated into Visual Studio 2005 in the most recent VSIP CTP download), F# and at least two Ruby-.NET bridges (John Lam’s at www

.iunknown.com, at least, is still being actively developed). Smalltalk and LISP, languages that have proved influential to a number of language and software development pundits, are partially represented.

#Smalltalk (pronounced Sharp Smalltalk, and available from www.refactory.com) seems to be close to a full implementation of the Smalltalk language but does not have the workspace/browser environment that many consider the heart of Smalltalk’s power. Similarly, while there are a few Lisp-like languages for .NET, there’s not a CLOS environment for the CLI. Whether this is because the CLI erects technical roadblocks of progress or because there’s insufficient motivation for commercial or open-source development of such environments, it’s regrettable and only serves to further the dominance of C# on the platform.


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