IronPython’s biggest customer is Resolver Systems, makers of Resolver One, “a familiar spreadsheet-like interface with the powerful Python programming language to give you a tool to analyse and present your data.” While I think they have a great product on pure merit – I’ve been impressed with their product since I was introduced to it at Lang.NET this year – I’m particularly interested in Resolver One as it’s written in IronPython. They use IPy not only as the embedded language exposed to end users but as the underlying implementation language as well.

Furthermore, these guys are heavily involved in the IPy community. Resolver developer Michael Foord is writing a book on IronPython and was our first Dynamic Language MVP. Michael’s Resolver colleague Jonathan Hartley did me a solid by taking my space at ØreDev. Even the CTO and Co-founder Giles Thomas is a regular blogger and speaker at events. Let me tell you, having guys this great in the community sure makes my job easier.

I just wanted to give the Resolver folks a shout out and say major congratulations on shipping a new version of their core Resolver One product. Michael has more info on this release as well as a glance forward with their plans for their next (IPy 2.0, woot!)

OK, here’s the last word on this whole background processing / concurrency decorators thing. I went back and re-wrote the original decorators, but using the approach I used with the SyncContext version. I don’t want to rehash it again, here are the main points:

• Instead of using a property to retrieve the dispatcher, I get it via Application.Current.MainWindow.Dispatcher (checking to be sure Current and MainWindow aren’t null…err, None). This way, I pick up the dispatcher automatically rather than forcing a specific interface on the class with decorated methods. In fact, this approach should work with pure functions as well.
• Since I don’t have a convenient function like SetSynchronizationContext, I store the dispatcher in thread local storage for later use in calling back to the UI thread.
• Unlike the SyncContext version, this version propagates the return value of @UIThread decorated functions. I don’t propagate the return value of @BGThread functions – there’d be no point farming a task to a background thread then blocking the UI thread waiting for a response.

As usual, the code is on my SkyDrive. It includes both the SyncContext and Dispatcher version of the decorators.

FYI, my Introducing IronPython article from the .NET Languages issue CoDe magazine is now available online in it’s entirety. Previously, only the introduction was available online. And while we’re on the subject, major thanks to the folks who at the CoDe magazine booth at PDC, who gave me several copies of that issue.