[IronPython] pywin32 on Iron Python?

[Dave Fugate]

Hi Jeff, we really do appreciate the work you did on ctypes.  Unfortunately, we would indeed not be able to (currently) take the contribution or even look at it due to legal concerns.  I realize it's fairly frustrating not being able to contribute back to IronPython and being limited to filing bug reports.  That said, there is something extremely useful the community can do for IronPython that our team simply cannot:  get 3rd party Python applications such as Django, pywin32, NumPy, etc running under IronPython.  This could mean adapting something like adodbapi.py to utilize IronPython APIs similar to what Vernon Cole did, or re-implementing NumPy's C-based modules in C#.  While it's quite difficult (impossible?) for anyone on our team to submit changes supporting IronPython back to other OSS projects, the rest of the IronPython Community happily doesn't have this limitation.  

If anyone wants to contribute in this manner, please just give us a heads up so we can obtain permission to add tests for the 3rd party app(s) to our checkin system.  Also, if there's enough interest in this I can setup a wiki page on CodePlex to keep track of whose working on what...

Thanks,

Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: users-bounces at lists.ironpython.com [mailto:users-bounces at lists.ironpython.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Hardy
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 4:49 PM
To: Discussion of IronPython
Subject: Re: [IronPython] pywin32 on Iron Python?

On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 1:30 PM, Dino Viehland <dinov at microsoft.com> wrote:
> Sorry Jeff, you're right.  I had started this a long time ago just as a fun thing
> to hack on every now and then and it's recently gotten good enough that it seems
> like it can make it into 2.6.  So it's a bit of an oddball - even if we had a
> place for me to claim that I was working on it it's doubtful that I would have
> actually claimed it until about a week or two ago...

That's about how I started, too (that, and I wanted to get the csvn
bindings working), and about the same time I felt comfortable making
it public.

The problem as I see it is that you can't take any of the work I've
done (on the off chance that my version has something novel ;)), and
even once it's in the trunk, the only thing I can do to improve it is
file bug reports. I know you have to go through the lawyers - and I
can only imagine how much fun that must be - but I do wonder what the
difference is between IR (which accepts library contributions) and IP
(which doesn't).

Is the plan to wait until the DLR is out of the IronPython tree, to
avoid any IP issues with it? Or is it, like most things, simply too
many things to do and not enough bodies?

>
> The good news is there's no other surprises like this lurking - we've generally
> been focused on 2.6, bugs, and startup perf - but ctypes is the #1 feature
> request so it seemed worthy of working on it.
>
> Maybe we should add a 2.6 Plan page to the CodePlex site?  I'm sure there's more
> information than just what new features we expect to be included that could
> go there.

I think a listing of what's planned to 2.6 would be great - especially
the parts that aren't in 2.0 already. I assume all of the CPython 2.6
features will be in there, but what are the holes in IPy 2.0 that 2.6
is going to fill? Also, at least an estimated timeline - I've heard
'fall' as an estimate, but something a little more concrete would be
nice :).

- Jeff
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