IronPython in Action News

There have been two new reviews posted on Amazon; one on Amazon.com and the other on Amazon.co.uk. I won't be posting here every time a new review goes up on Amazon, but this is the first on the British site and only the second on the main site. As the book hasn't been out very long it is very encouraging to see the book being well received by real life readers!

The new review on the US site is by Hernan Garcia:

A very good and useful book to start using IronPython. You only need to have an idea of programming (any language) before starting with this book. It will be useful for both the Python programmer or the .Net programmer.

The demo application is done following good programming practices and common patterns (something very much welcomed).

The book shows how to use the language in desktop and web applications; Silverlight and embedding it into your c# apps. (Ex: as an scripting option for your users to extend the program).

It reads pretty fast. I didn't find any cruft on the book, something that is not very common with technical books. Along the chapters you will find pointers to resources in the internet to deal with subjects that are not specific to the book but they are mentioned or referenced somehow.

The reviewer on the UK Amazon site is J.D. Schans:

Fantastic book: Straightforward enough for me to get started, but with enough detail to be useful as a reference book as well. Particularly liked the Silverlight and the testing chapters. Fun style of writing and 'real' enough examples.

Now that the book is out and people are actually reading it I'm slightly nervous as to how it will be received. Obviously it is a fantastic book, and all the reviews so far have been very positive, but even so...

It's therefore very encouraging to see that the first review on Amazon.com has arrived, and it's also positive (and I don't even know the reviewer):

Written by Python Experts who have developed complex applications with IronPython, this excellent book covers IronPython 2 and provides several code examples illustrating how faithful IronPython 2 is to Python 2.5 and how .Net and Python concepts map to each other. The diverse examples range from showing how IronPython integrates nicely with various .Net libraries such as Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight, to how Python's advanced features can be used effectively in agile testing, and to how C# and VB.Net applications can embed the IronPython Engine to run Python code and scripts. The book also tackles areas in which the integration between IronPython and .Net is currently not straightforward, providing guidance on how to work around these issues, as well as information on how Microsoft may address these remaining issues. Overall, I think the authors did an excellent job, and even readers who may be relatively new to either Python or .Net will find the book an easy and valuable read because of the many little things that the authors did (e.g., thoughtful and concise explanations, copious code, great references, etc) to make it so!!

Amazon reviews are very important to the success of a book, so if you've read IronPython in Action (and particularly if you've enjoyed it) we'd really appreciate a review. Thanks!