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I liked the book, but I’m a web developer and all of the winforms stuff turned me off. I thought Python was a great web development language? I know it is versatile, but I would have preferred web focused examples. Not a biggie, but it was a big reason why I skipped some big sections with all the win forms setup code right in the book. How helpful is that really anyway?
Rating: 3 / 5

While I just got my print copy of Michael Foorde’s excellent book, “IronPython in Action,” I’ve been using it and referring to it for the better part of a year. There’s a back story here, so be prepared.

I’m not a computer programmer, I’m an engineer who occasionally needs to do a bit of (rather frustrated) computer tinkering. For that, I’ve long used Matlab (a product of the MathWorks company). Matlab works well for most things, but it has some rather serious technical limitations. More importantly, though, it’s tremendously (prohibitely even) expensive. In contrast, Python is free, OpenSource and solves many of Matlab’s serious problems.

So, a little more than a year ago, I did a bit of investigation and eventually decided to try IronPython. It tied into Microsoft’s .Net library, it was real python, and it worked flawlessly on Windows. There was, however, just one problem: I didn’t have the time to figure out Python programmming on my own. That’s when I found Michael’s book. And it has been a godsend.

As I said above, I’m not a computer programmer and computer programming isn’t a skill I’ve ever wanted to properly acquire. My idea of computer programming is to find someone else’s example and then poke and prod until it does something relatively close to what I need. I don’t have the attention span for most books on the subject, and I don’t have a great deal of desire (or any serious motivation) to learn better skills.

Foord’s book simultaneously addressed two very real problems: 1) my own ignorance, 2) my impatience for results. The book nicely balances the need to teach skills with the need to show results. And I was well satisfied. The included examples are excellent, and I was able to get up and running on my own projects quickly. More importantly, though, I picked up quite a few insights on how to properly write a piece of code. For both of these reasons, this book easily earns its five stars. If you are interested in Python or .Net, it is an excellent reference. Do yourself a favor and just buy the book.
Rating: 5 / 5

I’ve always wanted to use Python more. Mostly I use it to write little one off scripts when I want to move a bunch of files around or parse some text. I was really excited when Manning asked to to review IronPython in Action because I wanted to dive a little deeper into Python and possibly use it in some web applications. “IronPython in Action” makes it easy to get started using IronPython right away.

The book starts out with an introduction to Python itself and continues with a general description of how IronPython can use .NET types. It starts off by showing how to build a Winforms app using IronPython. If anything exposes the cruel, unnecessary complexity of .NET, it’s got to be a Winforms app. The IronPython examples are easy to follow and it’s always fun to create and manipulate a Winforms app using the IronPython console.

Chapter 4 talks about using Design patterns in IronPython. This is a refreshing change from most language books where patterns aren’t mentioned at all. The chapter builds an IronPython application and uses the MVC pattern for the overall architecture and the command pattern for the implementation of the menu bar events.

Chapter 7 discusses agile testing and unit testing using IronPython. I almost dropped the book in amazement. Unit testing is almost never mentioned in any language book and is relegated to a niche or advanced topic. Find a book about any other .NET language that mentions unit testing that doesn’t have the word “testing” in the title. This alone sets the quality of this book far above other language books I have read. It’s not just enough, in my opinion, to discuss the syntax of the language. You have to teach the reader how to use the language in your everyday work.

The next section, section3, deals with a few core UI frameworks commonly used during .NET development, WPF, Silverlight, and ASP.NET, as well as showing how you can use IronPython to administer your system. Performing tedious tasks is my most common use of IronPython. I use it to automate moving files that fit a specific pattern out of my “downloads” directory to their proper places. It was great to learn a few new techniques for using IronPython in Powershell.

The last section talks about extending IronPython using C#, something which it sounds like should be avoided unless you just can’t achieve decent performance with the equivalent IronPython code, and using IronPython as an embedde scripting engine. Python is used a lot in game programming because it’s easy to embed. The nuts and bolts of the game engine will be written in low-level C/Assembly while the game logic and story is written in Python. I love the idea of having an embedded scripting engine in my application that will allow me to quickly extend my application at runtime. The user need to perform a new calculation on some data? Just send them an IronPython script and have them put it in a directory. It’s a great idea and the book describes exactly how to do just that.

My overall feeling about this book is that it’s a great book. The authors use the same humor and dry wit that Python is known for to great effect. Making the digestion of a very different language easier. I’m sure that as I continue to experiment with IronPython that I’ll keep this book close at hand.

Rating: 5 / 5