From: "Jeff Cuscutis" <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
To: "Sean Conner" <sean@conman.org>
Subject: Re: Polyglut [1]
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:42:21 -0400
> .net does what you're looking for. You use the language you want or implement your own, (Ruby, Python, managed C++, C#, VB (Vistual Basic) (just kidding!), etc …)—it compiles to an intermediate language, then is run as x86 machine instructions. All .net classes/objects are understood by any net language. Yes, there is garbage collection, I myself an not entirely comfortable with that, but their implementation is supposed to pretty good. It is cross platform (Mono) at least for web stuff, winforms support is in progress.
Write in what language you want, and know that any other language will be able to call your object with no problems.
Pretty cool, even if it is from Microsoft. :)
Jeff
Well … when you modify scripting languages to target a common internal representation (IronPython Python for .net [2] and Ruby for .net [3] for example) then it comes back to calling conventions and piecing it all together (heck, you can even get Lisp for .net [4] and COBOL for .net [5] so you could probably do a mixed language application under .net).
And yes, pretty cool, even if it is from Microsoft.
[2] http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2005/11/18/1871
[3] http://www.plas.fit.qut.edu.au/rubynet/
[5] http://www.dotnetheaven.com/Articles/ArticleListing.aspx?SectionID=16