.NET Framework++: Moving Forward and Staying Compatible with the Past

Jimmy Schementi is a Program Manager (and developer) on the IronRuby team. IronRuby is an
Open Source implementation of the
Ruby programming language for
.NET, heavily relying on Microsoft's
Dynamic Language Runtime. IronRuby is Ruby, but implemented on top of the DLR (which of course provides the capability for dynamic languages to interact with the BCL and CLR).
You've learned about the details of the DLR here on 9, which provides dynamic runtime support for .NET. IronRuby targets compatibility
with the 1.8.x branch of Ruby modulo continuations. IronRuby is an implementation of Ruby version 1.8.6.
Here, Jimmy explains the thinking behind the IronRuby project. Why are we doing this, anyway? When/Why would Ruby developers use IronRuby? What's the current status of the project? What's the future hold for IronRuby? Tune in and learn about the past, present
and future of IronRuby.
Useful Links:
IronRuby Homepage: http://ironruby.net/
CodePlex project (downloads, issue tracking): http://ironruby.codeplex.com/
Developer info (source code, developer docs): http://github.com/ironruby
Is anyone else having problems playing the video and/or downloading?? I click the "play" icon and it wont play, just shows a black screen. Also, when I try to download the WMV, it doesn't work either. Hmm...
Update: I right clicked the WMV link and selected "Save As" and now it's downloading, but really slow. It must be my ISP.
Update: Was it just me, or was http://ironruby.net down for a moment? Traffic related?
I think it's your network. I'm having no problems playing the video inline or downloading.
C
I had the black screen problem a couple times, using Chrome. Then I fired up Firefox, and it was fine.
I'm about half way through now, and Excellent Interview!
Since we're talking about the DLR, What happened to support for Managed JScript?
I'm going to have to watch this video tommorow. Yay Ruby!
Ruby and Python have lively developer communities that develop all sorts of useful libraries. Imagine using code from any Python module (http://pypi.python.org/pypi) or any Ruby gem (http://raa.ruby-lang.org/all.html) in your .NET projects. I wish there were also a Perl implementation on the CLR or DLR, because CPAN (http://www.cpan.org/modules/01modules.index.html) is another treasure trove of reusable code. Practically all of these libraries are free for use and open source as well.
I thought the Iron- prefix stood for I Run
On .NET.
Managed JScript is probably not gonna show up anymore. There seem to be discussion on the topic on DLR's CodePlex site, and the message is something like "it's lagging too far behind, there's nothing in there that's useful enough, except for the parser, but there are alternative JavaScript parsers implemented in .NET already, so even though the team thought about open sourcing it, they gave up". DLR has changed too much since the last drop we've got with Silverlight SDK (was it 0.3.0? I can't remember the exact version number), while IronPython and IronRuby were catching up to date with DLR, Managed JScript just stopped somewhere in the middle. Which is of course sad news to hear...
This should be good. I'll watch it tonight
Thank you, Charles!
good interview im missing two things though, perf numbers and tooling
ive got a rails app that i would loooove to have running on .net instead of standard ruby.. id also like to ditch netbeans once and for all and write code in a proper editor [i.e.
VS] Will we be able to open a rails project in vs soon?
or go File > New project > IronRuby/python?
at pdc a whole back there was talk of the pyStone benchamark and at that time iron python was twice as fast as Cpython i belive. does iron ruby follow a similar performance path? how much is shared [through the dlr] and how much is language specific?
Do a video on IronPython too
Be sure to ask if they have any plans for implementing CPython 3.0
On the above mentioned Managed JScript if you want your heart absolutly broken take a look here:
http://dlr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=58121. The Project coordinator posted this "The DLR JScript was experimental for informing the design of the DLR" now I don't
think anyone that read the initial release
here believed that Mnaged JScript was just an "Experimental" language. Way to be open microsoft. I don't need this noise, I'm switching to Java.
From the team that invented it: The DLR JS was experimental for informing the design of the DLR. At this time there are no plans to develop and release a DLR-hostable JS
That should end all speculation about the probable future of DLR JS... Of course, in software, nothing is improbable forever. But, I'd move on and not expect DLR JS to evolve or ship.
That siad, nothing prevents you from rolling your own
C
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