[IronPython] IronPython Tools for VS2010 Questions

[Dino Viehland]

Bill wrote:
> 1. Intellisense/autocomplete will be really useful for our users.  Can anyone
> tell me what should and shouldn't provide this capability.  So far it seems that
> some System types provide it and Python Module Methods work as well but
> I'm not sure what else should work as it is a little buggy.  For example is there
> any way to get intellisense from 3rd party c# dll's?

It will work with any Python code that you have loaded into your project or with
any .NET assemblies which can be successfully loaded by Visual Studio process 
and which there are clr.AddReference calls.  Likely that means the assemblies will
need to be in the GAC for them to be loaded.  Once we see the clr.AddReference
call you should be able to get completion on their namespaces and types.

> 
> 2. Using a Python Project and Chiron, what is the best way to include 3rd
> party .dlls in the xap?  At the moment I've copied the .dlls to the IP
> Silverlight\bin folder and added them to the "assemblies" attribute of IPy's
> <Language\> tag in Chiron.exe.config.  This works OK but means all .dlls will
> be included for all python projects.  Is there a way of getting this to work for
> each project individually without the users having to do anything manually (I
> want to create project templates that they can be up and running without
> doing any config themselves).
> Alternatively could the .dlls be downloaded from outside the xap e.g.
> from another .xap or .slvx?

I don't think there's a specific feature here.  If you'd like to see this in PTVS
which Jeff mentioned then you could open a feature request over at
pytools.codeplex.com.

> 
> 3. Is anyone currently working on the IPy tools specifically?  There are quite a
> lot of bugs right now unfortunately and many of them would need to be
> fixed if we were to use it.  Note that my company may be willing to provide
> some resource in that area if we decide to proceed, but we don't have much
> experience with VS extensions so we may need some guidance.

Yep, see Jeff's response. We're working on our side to improve the situation with
PTVS but don't have anything more to say yet.