Friday, March 23, 2007

And now for something completely different…

Late to the party, I know, but this year I finally got around to trying out Python, just for the heck of it. After all, working in a heavily Microsoft shop, the in thing in the day-job is .Net -- or C#, as it is usually known.

Which is where IronPython has come in very useful as a wedge issue. So far I've used it a lot in various build scripting applications -- it has been very useful for things like automating version number updates based on the check-in levels used to build. I now wonder why I've spent so long in the past grubbing around with extended .BAT and .CMD files to achieve what a few lines of Python will do.

There are joys in just being able to write version3 = '.'join(version.split('.')[0:3]) to turn a.b.c.d into a.b.c, as well as being able to just include by reference, rather than cut and paste, from other scripts -- like the whole getting the version information into the a.b.c.d string in the first place.

For the moment it's my current software infatuation, something I will use wherever the opportunity arises. Rather like I felt about Java ten years ago; though that language has now fallen from my favour.

[Now playing - Planet Rock]

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