Now I gotta explain the subject. I think that the "dream" feature for a Python .NET implementation is generation of standard IL code (not only bridging). I mean something like the previous [1] effort made by Mark Hammond with his Python .NET implementation (I've talked to him by email months ago and he told me that he stopped working on it cause he was no longer an ActiveState employee and nobody financed him to continue working).
Do you, Brian, ever thougth to do something like that? What do you think about that?
I think it would be great if there were a "native" Python implementation for .NET. Mark's whitepaper makes a lot of good points, and I agree with his assessment that it would doable given the commitment to make it happen. I think the result would end up looking a whole lot like Jython (a pure-Java implementation of Python, for anyone who hasn't heard of it). The main obstacle is that it would be a _lot_ of work, both up front and over time to update the implementation to track the evolution of the Python language. Jython is a good example of both the potential and the challenge - it is a great solution, but it struggles to keep up with CPython over time. I chose to do a bridge rather than try to carry on Mark's work mainly because it was something I had a shot at finishing in the limited amount of time I have to work on it (nights and weekends - my job doesn't really involve .net). While I was convinced that there was enough business value to justify the effort to do the bridge, it may still be too early in the .NET adoption curve to know whether there is enough business value in a full managed implementation to justify the (much higher) effort. I hope it does happen one day - if nothing else because I'm a big Python fan and would like to see it flourish. But it won't be me doing it on nights & weekends :^) Brian Lloyd brian@zope.com V.P. Engineering 540.361.1716 Zope Corporation http://www.zope.com