IronPython / IronRuby have been axed from Microsoft, contributions on Codeplex are welcome, with external project leads which include Jimmy Schementi and Miguel de Icaza.
This may actually be good for the Iron* languages, but I'm a little worried that the DLR inner-ring (Microsoft.Scripting.Core.dll) will stagnate as it will not receive contributions from the community.
I believe Mono guys should be blogging about this tomorrow, so more on future will be known then.
I think there's a lot of positives actually. It's unrealistic to think Microsoft was going to put big money into languages they have little control over, like python and ruby. They got dynamic into c# and f#. There is no reason to support python over clojure or any other new dlr language. I just hope the community is strong enough to make the DLR an even more compelling platform.
It is sad that Hugunin isn't involved with IronPython any more. But it may be good news for the IronPython and IronRuby community that Microsoft no longer has the reins. Currently it is impossible to contribute back code, which destroys any community. Moving to a fully open model seems like a step forward.
I have two questions though. What is Microsoft's commitment to the DLR and where does the IE9 Chakra Javascript engine fit into the .NET ecosystem. Will non-DLR Javascript be Microsoft's dynamic language of choice or will it say purely in the browser?
I doubt any dynamic language implementation on top of .NET could ever compete performance-wise with one of the modern JS engines. The CLR doesn't allow for certain low-level implementation tricks, like tagging pointers, and doesn't give you full control over the memory layout of your data structures. Also, all code generation has to go through the .NET JIT and the .NET runtime code generation APIs, which both aren't really optimized for the use by dynamic language runtimes.
However, Mono might be a better platform for dynamic languages, because the Mono team might be open to extending the core with some specialized infrastructure for dynamic languages...
Google may be working on their own Python VM as he would be a great hire for that job, especially given his involvement with Jython. Let's hope that :)
I sincerely doubt google is working on their own Python VM, given they've invested some amount of resources in PyPy in the past, and most recently Unladen Swallow (merging into Python 3).
"... Today marks the end of a crazy six year journey for me at Microsoft. I clearly remember my brutal first 8 months at this company as I worked with lawyers, marketing folks and execs to figure out if and how we could release IronPython as an open source project from Microsoft. ..."
But the bigger news is really this one ...
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/2010/10/21/new-compon...
IronPython / IronRuby have been axed from Microsoft, contributions on Codeplex are welcome, with external project leads which include Jimmy Schementi and Miguel de Icaza.
This may actually be good for the Iron* languages, but I'm a little worried that the DLR inner-ring (Microsoft.Scripting.Core.dll) will stagnate as it will not receive contributions from the community.