Thursday, February 10, 2011

First IronPython Bug Weekend Coming Up

The first IronPython Bug Weekend is this weekend, February 12-13, 2011. The purpose of the bug weekend is to get as many issues as possible looked at and fixed before the next pre-release of 2.7. There are a large number of issues in the issue tracker that need to checked to see if they are still valid (based on what I've seen, probably half of them are already fixed). If they're not reproducible, they can be closed; if they are reproducible, then patches are always welcome!

In particular, we'd like to get people who haven't contributed to IronPython before to chip in. It's really not that scary, I promise! To get started, check out how to get and build the source code and how to handle issues. If you have any questions, just ask – everyone is willing to help out.

To get in touch with the other bug weekend participants, there are two primary channels: the mailing list (sign up, view the archives) and the #ironpython IRC channel on freenode.net. If you're looking at a particular bug, make an update to the Bug Weekend spreadsheet, and make sure no one else is working on it either. It's a good idea to send a message on IRC or the mailing list as well.

Here's to a good bug-fixing weekend!

Monday, February 7, 2011

IronPython 2.7 Beta 2 Now Available

At long (long) last, the first community release of IronPython is now available – IronPython 2.7 Beta 2. The highlights of this release are the new zlib (which also enables gzip) and subprocess modules. There have also been a number of bug fixes.

Since Beta 1, we've moved all development to the Github IronLanguages project, although the issue tracker is still on CodePlex. This meant learning the build system, learning how to package a release (something that needs some work), and various other odds 'n ends. There are definitely some stumbling blocks that new people might trip over, so those should be taken care of as soon as possible.

The next release is scheduled for February 20th. The first IronPython Bug Weekend is scheduled for February 12-13th; more on that coming soon.