Thursday, July 10, 2008

"SUN Setting" their eyes on Python



SUN is planning to support Jython and Python languages. This will be done in their future Netbeans IDE releases. It will support Syntax highlighting with version support, Code Completion, Python/Jython support, PyUnit support, Debugger support, Python library manager, Bundled Jython Package and Execution of python scripts. Earlier this year SUN hired Frank Wierzbicki (who is leading the Jython project). I think he might be one of the forces behind this decision. So it is a good news that SUN opted to support Jython and Python.

What is Jython?



JPython was the first implementation of Python programming language in java. Then the project was moved to SourceForge and renamed Jython. Jython is a programming hybrid. It exhibits the strengths of both its parents, namely Java and Python. Since Jython is written in 100% pure java , scripts written using jython will run on top of any compliant Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Jython interpreter will support existing java libraries as if they were your own python modules.
I have been playing around with Jython for about 6 months now. I have an idea to start a mini-tutorial series out of the knowledge I gathered upto now. So stay tuned in to my blog ;)

Busy Days

It has been a tiresome week for me. I worked on the BSP (Basic Security Profile) 1.0 Validation Handler, which I am doing for GSoC 2008. Over the past few weeks I went through the pain of understanding two specifications, namely WS-Security 1.0 and BSP 1.0 .:( Finally I managed to get an overall picture of them. :) . While doing this project, the main difficulties that I came across were
  1. The lack of documentation of Open Source projects.
  2. Even though there are some documentation and code samples, some important points are left out of the documentation process. Mostly the programmer who did the project, is the one who is doing the documentation as well. Sometimes he may miss out some key factors. This is not done on purpose but it is attributed to human error. :)
  3. Therefore the people who use those software should adopt the trial and error method, to find out those points which were missed in the documenting process.
Though I had the above problems, I had the self-satisfaction that when I finish this project people will use it (Free of Charge) and I will be part of a good deed. Of course that's the whole point of FOSS. :) The other point to note here was the roles played by the various open source communities in promoting FOSS [including google $$$ :) $$$]. I would like to thank the Apache Rampart, Apache Axis2, Apache AXIOM communities for being very supportive. Plus I would like to thank all the guys who wrote articles, tutorials about those open source projects which made my life easier. I must thank my mentor, Nandana as well. He was good enough to allocate some time for me, out of his busy schedule. He really helped me to jump across obstacles which came up while doing the development.
Ah forgot to mention some other thing. I will blog those things which I had to learn through trial and error, so you guys could benefit from it. I will blog about those things when I get a free time. :)