Python and VS.Net

[srijit at yahoo.com]

Hello,
After going through various threads and messages, blogs and some local
discussions, I would like to share my impression. However, I do not
have any hands on experience on VS.NET.

1) Both Java and .NET are going to stay and keep competing with each
other for developers' mindshare.
2) At present Python 2.3 for Windows is based on VC6. This cannot
continue for ever. I consider absence of compatability of Python with
VC7/VS.NET as a major threat for Python's future.
3) Python and Java are already compatible with each other through
Jython. Python is also extremely compatible with Windows (without
.NET) thorough Mark Hammond's excellent library win32all.
4) Unfortunately, Microsoft's .NET does not appear to be friendly for
dynamic languages like Python. .NET framework seems to favour
statically typed languages. But I look forward to a solution.
5) Even now, it is not easy to convince management about Python's
adavantages in corporate world. It will be come more difficult, in
future, if Python.NET is not available.
6) Ruby users are also taking initiative to make Ruby work with .NET
framework. Refer http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&frame=right&th=9fa784e70c5dc0cf&seekm=20030716140638.M85561%40deltadata.dk#link1

I am interested to learn what core python team is thinking about
compatability of Python 2.x, 3.x with Windows/VC7/VS.NET.

Regards,
Srijit


"Matt Gerrans" <mgerrans at mindspring.com> wrote in message news:<bfo14i$ibh$1 at slb6.atl.mindspring.net>...
> "Trent Mick" wrote:
> > > If your Python code could thereby access the .NET libraries, that would
>  be
> > > another story.   That would be like Jython for .NET.   I was hoping that
>  was
> > > what Active State's Python-in-VS.NET-thingy was, but alas it was too
>  good to
> > > be true: it is only (so far) a color-syntaxing Python editor that takes
>  two
> > > or three minutes to load up.
> >
> > You are mixing up two difference ideas. ActiveState's VisualPython is a
> > plugin for VS.NET to provide all the IDE stuff (like editting,
> > debugging, interactive shell, help, intellisense, etc) for Python
> > programmers.
> 
> Uh, isn't that pretty much what I said?   I don't think I mixed up the
> ideas.   I only said that what ActiveState's Visual Python was and what I
> was originally hoping it would be were not the same.
> 
> > The idea of integrating the Python language somehow into the .NET
> > framework is independent of VS.NET-the-IDE, though I suppose one might
> > like some level of connection between the two. Mark Hammond, before and
> > while at ActiveState did do some exploratory work in this direction. But
> > that is all it has come to so far: exploration. So your "too good to be
> > true" does (currently) apply to a so called Python.NET. This code is
> > currently in PyWin32's CVS tree one SourceForge:
> >     http://sf.net/projects/pywin32
> > There is also the independent Kobra project that I have not looked at.
> 
> Yes, I was aware of these, too.   Despite Microsoft's claims about the .NET
> platform being language-independent, it doesn't seem to be a simple task to
> get Python going on it.    So far, I think there are only VB.NET, C++, C#
> and J#.   No Python#, Perl# or Ruby#, as of yet...