IronPython 1.0 Beta 7 Released

[Luis M. González]

Well, basically, ironpython is to .NET what jython is to JAVA.
It is a faithful implementation of the python language, written in c#,
created to run on and take full advantage of the .NET framework.

That means that you have access to all the available libraries of the
.NET framework and you can use your favorite language. It is 100%
compliant with cpython.

If you want to take advantage of ironpython, all you have to do is
learn more about the .NET framework and its libraries. You don't need
to learn anything new regarding language features. It's just plain and
regular python.

You have to bear in mind something very important though:
Ironpython is not a first class .NET language.
That means that although you can write programs that run on .NET and
you have access to all its libraries, you can't write libraries that
could be consumed by other languages.
This is because ironpython is still a dynamic language, while all the
other .NET  languages are static. So it cannot be compiled like c# or
VB, for example.
It is not a problem if all you want is to create end user programs, but
if you want to write reusable libraries, you're better off using any
other statically typed language.
In this case, a good alternative is Boo, which is very similar to
python (syntax wise), but statically typed.