IronPython and Its Features

IronPython is basically a compatible implementation of Python, the programming language for Microsoft that targets the .NET Framework as well as Mono. It provides support for a highly interactive console with full dynamic compilation.



Being an excellent addition to.NET Framework, IronPython provides the developers of Python with the impressive power of.NET framework. The existing developers of .NET are also capable of using IronPython as a great scripting as well as a fast language to be used for testing, embedding and in writing a new application from a scratch.

The following are some of the features of this programming language -

Seamless Integration: It integrates seamlessly with rest of.NET Framework and makes all the libraries available easily to the Python programmers, at the time of maintaining compatibility with the existing Python code. Integration of Visual Studio is made available for the programmers through Python Tools for Visual Studio.

Use of Python Syntax: It uses the existing Python syntax as well as the new Python libraries like the CLR which are used for making the .NET features available to the IronPython code.

Open-source: It is open-source as well as free extension for commercial as well as isolated versions of the Microsoft's Visual Studio IDE. This open source project is available freely under the Apache License v2.0. GitHub being part of the Iron Languages project, stores the sources. This is entirely written in C#, although some parts of its code are generated automatically with the help of a code generator that is written in Python.

Dynamic Language Runtime: This has been implemented on top of the DLR or the Dynamic Language Runtime. DLR is a library which runs on top of the Common Language Infrastructure in order to provide dynamic typing and dynamic method dispatch, for the dynamic languages amongst other things.

DLR is a part of .NET Framework 4.0 and part of Mono trunk builds. This DLR is able to be used both as a library on the older CLI implementations.

Common Language Infrastructure: The Common Language Infrastructure acts as a great platform that can be used to create programming languages while the DLR makes it even better in case of dynamic languages.

.NET Assemblies: The assemblies one finds in .NET form the smallest unit of functional distribution. These assemblies usually correspond to a particular file with .dll file extension. It is available either in the application’s installation folder or in the Global Assembly Cach (GAC). The assemblies can be loaded by using the methods of the clr module.

Interface extensibility: Interface extensibility is one of the key advantages that Python provides its users with. Its functions as another extensibility layer to various application frameworks that are written in .NET language. Integrating an IronPython interpreter is relatively simpler in an existing application framework.

Once the same is in place, the downstream developers are able to use the scripts that are written in IronPython which interact with the DOT NET objects in that framework. Thereby it extends the functionality in the interface of the framework, without changing the code base of the framework.

It makes an extensive use of reflection. Passed to one .NET object in a reference, the language will start importing the methods and types automatically that are available to that object. It results in a high intuitive experience while working along with the .NET objects from within the IronPython script.

Silverlight: It is another feature that supports IronPython. This feature is able to be used like that of a scripting engine such as JavaScript engine in the browser.

The scripts in IronPython are passed on just like the simple client-sided Javascript-scripts in <script>-tags. This makes modification of the embedded XAML markup possible. Gestalt is the technology that powers this feature.

Compared to CPython, the characteristics of performance for this language, (which is actually a reference implementation of Python), is dependent on the actual benchmark that has been used. It is worse than the CPython language with respect to performance standards on majority of PyStone benchmarks however it is better in terms of other benchmarks. To get maximum benefits of Python development, you may consider hiring services of a custom Python Development company.

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