Why SharpDevelop is better IDE ?

In my first post about IronPython, I documented how installing IronPython Studio was painful (Needed Visual Studio shell, which in itself was confusing). When I started with IronPython I did not know about any other IDE, hence I went ahead with IronPython Studio. But later I came to know about SharpDevelop.

My initial problem with SharpDevelop was that it needed .NET 3.5 SP1 at the minimum. I had just gone through the painful exercise of downloading and installing the prerequisites for IronPython Studio. So I was in no mood of downloading another big chunk before I can start my IronPython Development. But once I got past my initial development cycle, I wanted to give Sharp Develop a try.

After using both the ID interchangeably, I finally settled on SharpDevelop as my choice for IronPython Development

Read more..

IronPython

After working on initial prototype using pylons, on ubuntu, my employer needed a standalone application (on windows) So I was looking for ways to reuse my python code to avoid double work.  had only heard about iron python but beyond that I did not know anything more.

A bit of research later, I downloaded IronPython from here and IronPython Studio. I was quite thrilled to find out that Microsoft, has created this shell, which allows developers to integrate new languages with Visual Studio Shell.

Installing IronPython Studio

Installing IronPython was very straight forward. Considering it is one of the Python implementation itself, you don’t have to have standard python installed. (But I did, more on that later)

Setting up IronPython Studio wasn’t so straight forward.  I had to download standalone version of Visual Studio shell. But the problem, and it is well documented, is that installing the redistributable package in itself is not the complete step, as you would believe from the website. I confirmed that the package was installed, and stil IronPython Studio would complain, and refuse to proceed. It turns out that you need to install the Visual Studio environment, which is inside this directory structure you just created.

Once I installed Visual Studio Shell, IronPython Studio installed easily.  Using IronPython has been nice experience in just a few hours I have been using it. The Code completion isn’t upto my liking yet, but it is helpful at times.

Using Standard Python Libraries

Since my original code was written on linux, it used only the standard python modules. In a manner of speaking, it was “pure” python code. Since IronPython is an implementation of the Python programming language running under .NET, it was obivious that my code may not work as is. But I’m glad that I did not have to make too many changes to get it working under IronPython.

As is well documented in IronPython Tutorial, it is not very difficult to use standard python libraries with IronPython (with a few exceptions – more about this a little later) To get IronPython to use Standard Python Modules,  one needs to add the following two lines to C:\IronPython-2.0.1\Lib\site.py :

import sys
sys.path.append(r"C:\Python25\Lib")

While this works for most part, it doesn’t help if you are using Python extensions written in C. More about my specific problems in another post. But there is an open source project IronClad to deal specifically with this issue. In the meantime, you can check the differences between IronPython and CPython

Related articles

• IronPython in Action (blogs.msdn.com)
• Why Python? (mehmetalierturk.com)

Automate repetitive tasks using AHK

I have been a big supporter of automation where possible. I was reading about how “ActiveWords” was the best piece of software, and that is when I became aware of AutoHotKey, or AHK as it is fondly called. I learned more about AHK on LifeHacker

Considering that I came to AHK looking for ActiveWords replacement, it is no wonder that I use Hotstrings feature extensively. It would not be wrong if I said that is probably the only feature of AHK I use. So let me explain How I use AHK to automate lot of repeatative tasks, mostly related to typing same set of words lot of times.

It would not be out of place to here to mention texter, AHK based tool developed by LH team.

Expand Acronymns

I have created Hotstrings for regularly used acronyms. When I type them, AHK will automagically expand them. This has a huge benefit that I am free to use the acronyms when I type, but my readers aren’t left wondering about what it means. Some of the commonly used ones are YMMV, AFAIK, BTW etc.

SMS style typing:

SMS is used extensively in India, so I’ve seen new professionals – fresh out of college – are used to new SMS-lingo. But in professional communication, it is a complete no-no. AH to the rescue, add your SMS word to your Hotstrings list and let AH complete it. I personally don’t SMS or IM as much, but I have seen people use ‘ur’ a lot, when they mean your.

Pleasantries:

I also have Hotstrings for likes of Regards, Thanks etc.

Frequently used names :

I have Hotstrings like bg=Bill, lt=Linus, esr=Eric etc. I work a lot with my counterparts in Japan where you address people using -san. So it helps to have HotStrings like gt=Takei-san.

Authentications :

I’m too paranoid to allow the browser to remember my username and password, so this is my next best thing. For company internal websites, I need to enter something like domain\username. I’ve created a hotstring like d\u. This is replaced by domain\username by AHK

Are there any negatives of AHK ?

Well, these aren’t the cons in true sense of the word, but there are some practical problems I face. After extended use of AHK Hotstrings, one may see following side effects :

• May forget correct spellings
• Feel like crippled without AHK on guest PC

Do let me know in comments how you use AHK or texter in your daily lives to automate the repetitive tasks.

Note : Originally posted on the Kaizen Blog on October 31st, 2007

Can’t use AHK ? because you are  on Linux ?  Don’t worry, come back to check the review of similar tool on Linx

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