Wizards of Smart

Houston will soon have a new user group to discuss dynamic languages on and around the .NET platform. We’ll be focusing primarily on IronPython and IronRuby, but we’ll also touch on Boo, PHP, etc. as they relate to specific approaches (DSLs) and Azure. Our first meeting is coming up on Tuesday, January 5th at 6:30pm at Microsoft’s offices. We’ll be introducing the group and our goals as well as having a presentation introducing the Ruby language. You can follow the group via the Live Group and Twitter. If you’re in Houston, please join us!

.NET 4.0 is almost here, and with it, the DLR. What does that mean for you? If you are a .NET developer, you now have several new languages at your disposal in IronPython and IronRuby that will allow you to either write code much faster or embed scripting support into your projects. If you aren’t a .NET developer, you can now leverage the Silverlight full .NET framework using a language familiar to you. We’ll also be looking at other dynamic languages–such as Boo, JavaScript/JScript, and PHP–and their interoperability with various parts of the Microsoft ecosystem.

We’ll be starting up January 5th, 2010 and meeting the first Tuesday of every month. Please join us as we explore the possibilities with .NET and dynamic languages. More info to come!

In case you are missing PDC like me, you can find some great videos of the sessions on Channel 9. I found Anders’ comments on the future of C# to be incredibly exciting. You can watch it here. I’d love to hear feedback on whether you to are excited about the new features he points out for C# 4.0:

• Dynamically Typed Objects
• Optional and Named Parameters
• Improved COM Interoperability
• Co- and Contra-variance

Update: You can now download and try out the CTP for Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0 from Microsoft Connect!