Earlier this week, version 0.9 of IronRuby was released, the last beta before the final 1.0 version. About two weeks before that, the IronPython project released its feature complete 2.6 beta of the most widely used version of Python. The "iron" prefix implies that these languages are meant to execute on the .NET runtime and interoperate with the .NET framework and classes.
At the Institute for Cyber Security, dynamic languages such as Python and Ruby are used in a wide variety of projects, and the .NET framework, along with Java, a mainstay for our developers and architects working on desktop, service, and web applications. While dynamic languages have moved into the .NET and Java frameworks through new languages or features, it's more in line with .NET's paradigm to have any languages run and interoperate on the same VM (as languages such as NetCOBOL would attest to). With the recent envelope-pushing of modern dynamic languages into the .NET framework, and to a degree in Java, it'll be interesting to see what the next few years has in store for both natural competitors.
Erhan J. Kartaltepe,
erhan.kartaltepe-at-utsa.edu
