Python on the .NET Framework

One of the least talked language on web is IronPython when it became available in Microsoft CLR.
Dynamic runtime languages were previously thought to run very poorly on the .NET Framework, but IronPython dismisses that idea. Microsoft is backing IronPython because it exemplifies just how well the .NET Framework can handle dynamic runtime languages. Supposedly, IronPython runs as fast as the C-based implementation of Python-2.4, if not faster. The company claims that IronPython can run 1.8x faster than Python-2.4 right now. Besides being speedy, it also allows developers to access all of the standard C Python libraries, not to mention and create their own subclasses deriving from the .NET framework.

IronPython is the codename for a new implementation of the Python programming language on the .NET Framework. It is fast - up to 1.8x faster than Python-2.4 on the standard pystone benchmark. It supports an interactive interpreter with fully dynamic compilation as well as static compilation to produce pre-compiled executables. It's well integrated with the rest of the Framework and makes all of the .NET libraries easily available to Python programmers. In this episode Jim Hugunin introduces IronPython with demos showing interactive exploration and GUI building from a command prompt as well as simple embedding as a scripting language in an existing Windows Presentation Foundation application. Via Overview at Microsft's Download website

Still, when I read this old news, I was surprised to see Microsoft's backing on Python where they will not be investing that much of money to see a dynamic language work. Anyways, as part of research found a very interesting comparision of Ruby, Java and C++ with Python by dmh2000. This comparision is just awesome.

conclusion
Java is more productive than C/C++. Use C/C++ only when speed or bare metal access is called for. Python/Ruby is more productive than Java and more pleasant to code in. There is a big question on static vs. dynamic typing. I contend that static typing has to be better for the purposes of program correctness, but the required cruft reduces productivity. If actual practice in large systems shows that in fact runtime typing errors don't occur often and are worth the productivity tradeoff, then I will bow to dynamic typing. I can't come up with a definitive answer to Python vs. Ruby. They seem very equivalent. Would choose based on practicality in a given situation. My general feeling was that Python annoyed me in ways that Ruby didn't, but I think those annoyances would disappear if I was using Python all the time.