Python and BOO

[bumsfeld]

A somewhat strange find in the Pyton Code Snippets here on this site. Is the BOO language very much like Python?

It seems nice that one can compile and interpret the same language. Will it be worth to translate Python code to BOO just to get a nice small exe file?

Does it have something like wxPython?

[cscgal]

I thought this was a joke until I stumbled upon http://boo.codehaus.org/

[bumsfeld]

Maybe Vegaseat was joking?

[cscgal]

No, it looks like the language really exists (see link posted).

[vegaseat]

There is a story behind Boo. A gifted programmer in Brazil developed applications in Python and then rewrote them in C# for distribution. Python code is short and easy on the eye, alas C# is extremely verbose and type declarations are dogmatic, almost fascistic.

It was easier to develop a new language combining the best of Python and C#. The result was Boo with a ghost as a symbol. The endless {} and ;;; are replaced with indentations, if the compiler can infere the type it will and so on. It almost looks like the compiler is allowed to think a little, can you imagine that!

Boo uses the Common Language Interface (CLI) just like C#, which makes GUI tools available. So a wxPython like tool is built in.

The caveat with Boo is that it is young and help is almost totally missing.

[cscgal]

Thanks for the lesson, vegaseat!