Programming with Boo
Boo Speak
© Piumadaquila, Fotolia
Hooked on Python's "wrist-friendly" syntax? Enamored of .NET architecture but equally appreciative of C#'s strong typing? Boo offers the best of three worlds.
Unlike other development platforms, the .NET framework can mix and match code from any number of programming languages. For those who program in .NET, the universal code form known as Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) is a lingua franca. If you can translate your source code into MSIL, you can combine it with, say, Visual BASIC.NET or C# to produce one executable.
Indeed, given such flexibility, developers have adapted many popular languages to .NET. IronPython [1] is a full implementation of Python for .NET, and IronRuby [2] is a proposed .NET-ready implementation of Ruby. Also, you can find Java, Lisp, and Smalltalk for .NET. Moreover, if you don't like any of the existing programming languages, you can create your own. If you can consume source code and produce MSIL, the sky is the limit.
In fact, that's the genesis of Boo [3]. Hooked on Python's sparse, "wrist-friendly" syntax but enamored of the .NET architecture and the strong typing found in C#, developer Rodrigo Barreto de Oliveira set out to combine the best features of both – with just the right amount of Ruby – into something readily suited to iterative development.
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