Microsoft's C# (Sharp) & .NET -- A Heads Up

[Mark Hammond]

In article <Epxa5.13351$Tb7.89807 at news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
  "Neil Hodgson" <neilh at scintilla.org> wrote:
>    Now that Microsoft have revealed their Intermediate Language (IL)
>    virtual machine, are we going to see a version of Python that
>    compiles directly to IL? Or will Python byte codes still be
>    interpreted by C code?

Directly to IL - although there is still a runtime that handles some of
the Python semantics.

This new compiler could be compared, conceptually, with JPython - it is
a completely new implementation of Python.  It has a compiler that
generates native Windows .DLL/.EXE files.  It uses a runtime that
consists of a few thousand lines of C# (C-Sharp) code.  The Python
programs can be debugged at the source level with Visual Studio 7, as
well as stand-alone debuggers for this environment.  Python can sub-
class VB or C# classes, and vice-versa.

Unfortunately, there will not be a public release of their SDK for a
couple of months - so the only people able to use this compiler are
people who attended the PDC, and hence have the pre-beta SDK on their
conference CDs.

The compiler is looking pretty reasonable.  pystone.py (amongst others,
of course) compiles and runs.

However, this should be quite exciting for the Python community.  The
general feel of the conference here is that the MS .NET technology is
exciting and a good thing.  I predict that the Windows community will
embrace this technology, and having Python be a first-class citizen is a
good thing!  It _is_ a radical change.

Future work on this compiler will be under the ActiveState banner.
However, the compiler and the runtime are all open source.  The
compiler is written in CPython, and uses win32com to get at the
Reflection::Emit APIs provided by .NET.  All the existing work has been
done mainly by me, with some code and advice from Greg Stein.  Now the
NDA is lifted, I hope (some of) the Python community will get behind
this, and take advantage of the open-sourceness of the compiler and
runtime, and help us turn this into an excellent language for this
environment.

All good stuff (IMO, of course)

None of this is speaking for ActiveState - just my personal opinion.

Mark (still at the PDC!)


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