CPython or IronPython? [closed]

Question

What would you use for a brand new cross platform GUI app, CPython or IronPython ?

What about
- license / freedom
- development
- - doc
- - editors
- - tools
- libraries
- performances
- portability

What can you do best with one or the other ?
- networking
- database
- GUI
- system
- multi threading / processing

Delight

What does "what about" mean? What's your actual question? "What about" is vague, making it impossible to answer. Could you list any specific issues you've found and want some clarification on? Perhaps this should be community wiki because it's so open-ended. – Kawai

The question is : which one would you choose, and why ? – Delight

@dugres: Choose for what? What purpose? What are you trying to do? What operating system? What database? What application are you writing? Please ask a question that can be answered or mark this community wiki. – Kawai

It's really a general question : I know CPython and I don't know IronPython, so I wonder if it's worth considering, what is it good for, why some people are using it, in which situation will it be better suited than CPython ? and I'm perfectly happy with the kind of answers you can see below. So, if you use IronPython, I'd be happy to know why. – Delight

@dugres: What does "worth considering" mean? "good for" what? All programming languages are good for almost anything. Please mark this community wiki since there's no "answer" that could possibly make sense with such a vague question. – Kawai

I'm not looking for THE right answer, I'm interested in everybody's opinion. – Delight

@dugres: Opinion on what? The question is so vague that it's not possible to provide useful information. Please update the question to something specific or change it to a community wiki. – Kawai

With IronPython you can use standard .NET libraries (which is unmatched, even a unix person would accept that). However, CPython gives you more flexibility in terms of other python libraries which have C extensions such as scipy and numpy. – Reiterate

Answer 1

Use CPython, with IronPython you are bound to .Net platform which do not have much cross platform support, mono is there on linux but still for a cross platform app, I wouldn't recommend .Net.

So my suggestion is use CPython, for GUI use a framework like wxPython/PyQT and you would be happy.

Hellish

Answer 2

if you like/need to use .net framework, use ironpython, else CPython it's your choice

(or you can try PyPy :))

Maressa

I don't need .Net and I don't know if I like it. – Delight

Answer 3

I can only think of about one "cross platform" GUI app that's remotely tolerable (firefox), and people are complaining wildly about it everywhere I look.

If you want to do cross platform, build a nice, solid model that can do the work you need done and build platform-specific GUIs that use it.

I don't know how tolerable wxpython or pyqt are on Windows and Linux, but the further you get from plain cocoa on OS X, the harder it gets to build and the less pleasant it gets to use.

Gird

wxPython is the closest you can get to native looking both on windows and linux, but it won't look nice on OS X. – Handal

I have made few app on Mac OS X using wxPython and it looks good enough – Hellish

It's not just about look. I can handle look alright for the most part. It's just bad behavior that causes issues. Firefox has done a lot of work to look and mostly feel right on OS X, but I still can't hit cmd-ctl-d while hovering a word to look it up in my system dictionary. – Gird

Answer 4

cpython is native runtime based python,,,it has a thin runtime level to the hosting os, ironpy is soft vm based python,,,it has a heavy soft interpter embeded in the dotnet vm,,which is called clr

overall,,,cpython is made to be a scripting language natively,,it focus on the language,while ironpy is made to accomplished with clr,,,where clr is the main essisal,,then the ironpy language itself,,,it focus on the clr platform...

check hellogameprogramming.net for more details

Winthorpe

I think you are confused. After an expression in IronPython is interpreted, it is compiled into MSIL. And when an expression in MSIL is executed, it is compiled into native code. That's why generally IronPython is slower in terms of startup time, but faster in the execution flow. You can do some benchmarks and see yourself. – Reiterate