Python slithers onto .Net

IronPython is an implementation of Python for Microsoft's .Net Common Language Runtime layer

Version 1 of the shared-source IronPython software was released last week. IronPython is an implementation of the Python dynamic programming language that runs on Microsoft’s .Net Common Language Runtime (CLR) framework.

Jim Hugunin, the creator of Jython and IronPython lead developer, broke the news on the IronPython mailing list last week. Although he was initially cynical about the CLR platform, a change of heart eventually led him to work for Microsoft while finishing the IronPython project.

“I found that Python could run extremely well on the CLR – in many cases noticeably faster than the C-based implementation [CPython],” Hugunin said. However, he warned that there will be differences between IronPython 1.0 and CPython. “IronPython is missing a number of standard C-based extension modules, so things like ‘import bsddb’ will fail,” he added.