Jim Hugunin leaves Microsoft and IronPython | Hacker News Reader

Jim Hugunin leaves Microsoft and IronPython

hugunin.net

84 pointsjnoller20 comments

Jim hasn't been involved with IronPython for quite some time, although this does cast a shadow on their commitment to .NET.

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.

Thanks for the link! That is definitely a great news. I also found: http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/10/leadership-of-ironru...

On the DLR: what makes you say the DLR will not receive contributions from the community (real question, as always) ?

See this post, there are two parts to DLR.

http://lists.ironpython.com/pipermail/users-ironpython.com/2...

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.

Wow, gone to Google. I wonder if his involvement with Java now and Python will get him back involved with his original Python project: Jython ?

That would be nice - its merits aside, Jython is unusably slow at the moment.

I think so too. I started looking at Jython right when he jumped off the team and then it pretty much languished and I lost interest as well.

His original Python project was Numeric, then Jython, then IronPython. The guy is a one-man coding army for Python.

For those who don't know Numeric is the ancestor of NumPy.

The program manager for IronRuby left Microsoft just a couple months ago citing lack of support and commitment for that project:

http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/08/start-spreading-news...

He has now become the IronRuby lead, although not at Microsoft.

Link: http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/10/leadership-of-ironru...

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 can't say anything definitively, but the IE Javascript team is completely separate from the .NET team.

I can confirm this - IE's JS has nothing to do with .NET in terms of people or technology

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. ..."

Why did it take 6 years?

It didn't. IronPython is open source and has been since early on.

"... It didn't. ..."

I wasn't referring to IronPython. Why did it take Jim so long to leave?

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