I saw that.  After logging in, I was able to successfully download.  I don't 
know if it was a timing issue or a login issue.

________________________________

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Tim Riley
Sent: Wed 9/6/2006 6:32 AM
To: Discussion of IronPython
Subject: Re: [IronPython] [ANN] IronPython 1.0 released today!


I keep getting an error from codeplex when I try to download 1.0.bin. Am I the 
only one?


On 9/5/06, Jim Hugunin < [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: 

        I'm extremely happy to announce that we have released IronPython 1.0 
today!
        http://www.codeplex.com/IronPython
        
        I started work on IronPython almost 3 years ago.  My initial motivation 
for the project was to understand all of the reports that I read on the web 
claiming that the Common Language Runtime (CLR) was a terrible platform for 
Python and other dynamic languages.  I was surprised to read these reports 
because I knew that the JVM was an acceptable platform for these languages.  
About 9 years ago I'd built an implementation of Python that ran on the JVM 
originally called JPython and later shortened to Jython.  This implementation 
ran a little slower than the native C-based implementation of Python (CPython), 
but it was easily fast enough and stable enough for production use - testified 
to by the large number of Java projects that incorporate Jython today. 
        
        I wanted to understand how Microsoft could have screwed up so badly 
that the CLR was a worse platform for dynamic languages than the JVM.  My plan 
was to take a couple of weeks to build a prototype implementation of Python on 
the CLR and then to use that work to write a short pithy article called, "Why 
the CLR is a terrible platform for dynamic languages".  My plans quickly 
changed as I worked on the prototype, because I found that Python could run 
extremely well on the CLR - in many cases noticeably faster than the C-based 
implementation.  For the standard pystone benchmark, IronPython on the CLR was 
about 1.7x faster than the C-based implementation.
        
        The more time I spent working on IronPython and with the CLR, the more 
excited I became about its potential to finally deliver on the vision of a 
single common platform for a broad range of languages.  At that same time, I 
was invited to come out to Microsoft to present IronPython and to talk with 
members of the CLR team about technical issues that I was running into.  I had 
a great time that day working through these issues with a group of really smart 
people who all had a deep understanding of virtual machines and language 
implementation.  After much reflection, I decided to join the CLR team at 
Microsoft where I could work with the platform to make it an even better target 
for dynamic languages and be able to have interesting technical discussions 
like that every day. 
        
        The first few months at Microsoft were a challenge as I learned what 
was involved in working at a large company.  However, once the initial hurdle 
was over I started experiencing the things that motivated me to come here in 
the first place.  The team working on dynamic languages in general and 
IronPython in particular began to grow and I got to have those great technical 
discussions again about both how to make IronPython as good as it could be and 
how to make the CLR an even better platform.  We began to take advantage of the 
great new features for dynamic languages already shipping in .NET 2.0 such as 
DynamicMethods, blindingly fast delegates and a new generics system that was 
seamlessly integrated with the existing reflection infrastructure.
        
        We were also able to release IronPython publicly from Microsoft with a 
BSD-style license.  In the agile spirit of the project, we put out a new 
release of IronPython once every three weeks (on average) over the course of 
the project.  This helped us connect well with our daring early adopters and 
receive and incorporate their feedback to make IronPython better.  We've had 
countless excellent discussions on the mailing list on everything from 
supporting value types to calling overloaded methods.  Without the drive and 
input of our users, IronPython would be a much weaker project. 
        
        IronPython is about bringing together two worlds.  The key value in 
IronPython is that it is both a true implementation of Python and is seamlessly 
integrated with the .NET platform.  Most features were easy and natural choices 
where the language and the platform fit together with almost no work.  However, 
there were challenges from the obvious cases like exception type hierarchies to 
the somewhat esoteric challenges concerning different methods on strings. We 
spent long days and sometimes weeks looking for the best answers to these 
challenging problems and in the end I think that we have stayed true to both 
Python and .NET. 
        
        To drive our Python compatibility, we run a large portion of the 
standard Python regression test suite in addition to a large custom test suite 
we added that runs IronPython and CPython side-by-side to test for identical 
behavior whenever possible.  Despite all of this work, there will still be 
differences between IronPython 1.0 and CPython.  The most obvious difference is 
that IronPython is missing a number of standard C-based extension modules so 
things like "import bsddb" will fail.  We maintain a detailed list of 
differences between the two implementations and aim to reduce the size of this 
list in every release. 
        
        IronPython has also striven for deep integration with the CLR.  For the 
implementation this is a great thing as it lets us take advantage of 
highly-tuned components developed for other languages such as the just-in-time 
compiler, garbage collector, debugging support, reflection, dynamic loading and 
more.  This integration is also valuable to IronPython developers as it lets 
them easily use any and all libraries built for .NET from their Python code. 
        
        This is the 1.0 release of IronPython.  It's more complete and well 
tested than any other 1.0 product I have personally released in my career.  
However, like any other software product it's not perfect.  You can search for 
known issues and let us know about any new ones that you find in our public bug 
database.  We're continuing to work on IronPython and we want your input on how 
to make 1.1 and future releases even better.
        
        It's been an exciting journey for me to see IronPython go from a rough 
prototype playing around with some ideas to a solid 1.0 release.  This never 
could have happened without all the people who've contributed to this project 
along the way.  My thanks go out to all the users who braved our early releases 
and passed along their problems and suggestions.  My thanks also go out to the 
amazing group of people here at Microsoft who've come to join this project and 
drive it to this quality 1.0 release.
        
        Shipping IronPython 1.0 isn't the end of the road, but rather the 
beginning.  Not only will we continue to drive IronPython forward but we're 
also looking at the bigger picture to make all dynamic languages deeply 
integrated with the .NET platform and with technologies and products built on 
top of it.  I'm excited about how far we've come, but even more excited by what 
the future holds! 
        
        Thanks - Jim Hugunin (for the IronPython Team)
        _______________________________________________
        users mailing list
        users@lists.ironpython.com
        http://lists.ironpython.com/listinfo.cgi/users-ironpython.com
        


<<winmail.dat>>

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