SilverLight, a new way for Python?

[Duncan Booth]

Michel Claveau <mcPas.De.Spam at mclaveauPas.De.Spam.com> wrote:

> Hi!
> 
> SilverLight ("MS flash killer"), is a plug-in for InternetExplorer 
> (Win), FireFox (Win), and Safari (Mac).
> The release 1.1-Alpha come with JScript & Python (or ironPython?)

IronPython.

> Perhaps SilverLight is a new substitute for Python-Active-Scripting in
> IE.

It can do much more than active scripting.

> 
> But, I don't had try SilverLight...

Have you at least run the demos? To run the demos you just need Windows
or a Mac (or a virtual machine running windows) and install the 
Silverlight 1.1 alpha. 

> 
> Who had try it?
> 

There are some nice demos at
http://silverlight.net/themes/silverlight/community/gallerydetail.aspx?cat=2 

In particular the DLRconsole
(http://silverlight.net/Samples/1.1/DLR-Console/python/index.htm) gives
you an interactive prompt to play with IronPython (or JScript) and XAML. 

The big drawback is that despite being trumpeted as cross-platform it
runs on Windows and Mac but not Linux. The technology looks very
tempting, so much so that I can see a lot of people are going to use it. 

I balked at downloading the full 5.6Gb Visual Studio beta, but once you
have the plugin installed in your browser you can run IronPython + xaml
directly from your local disc (or a web server). e.g. Download the
PhotoViewer demo and unzip and you can then immediately start hacking
the Python file. I haven't tried running it from an Apache server yet
but there since the code is just client-side it should all work (although 
until it gets out of Alpha you can't actually use it for anything real).