Ruby | Python in the browser, do it yourself

What for?

Client part in web applications can be created in JavaScript. I believe that most developers with great pleasure would have moved away from this rule and used their favorite server-side language. Well, the MIX Online team provided fans of dynamic languages ​​with such an opportunity, for more information on this, see “ Gestalt Project - write in Ruby, Python and XAML directly in HTML on the client side ”. Below, I propose to create something similar, but on my own.

With using what?

After seeing a few examples, it became clear to me that Gestalt is implemented on Silverlight + Dynamic Languages ​​Runtime. Next, I figured, but how difficult is it to create something with your own hands? And the solution right away: Silverlight is able to interact with the DOM - it means I can get the code and interpret it - things are easy - implementation.

Let's get started

We will need:

• Visual Studio> 2008SP1 (you can also use other IDEs or text editing tools if you wish)
• Silverlight> 2.0 Tools
• Dynamic Languages ​​SDK> 0.5.0 ( download )
• 10 min time

Lead code

Open Visual Studio, create the Silverlight Application, I’ll call the project “mygestalt”. Now I realize that I will not have to write much at all, I will need an experimental Client-Script and its interpreter. Open the page on which our Silverlight will be hosted, in my case it is mygestaltTestPage.aspx and add our client-side python code there. It should look something like this:

<script type= "python" > def func(): HtmlPage.Window.Alert( "Hello world!" ) func() </script> * This source code was highlighted with Source Code Highlighter .

1. <script type= "python" > def func(): HtmlPage.Window.Alert( "Hello world!" ) func() </script> * This source code was highlighted with Source Code Highlighter .
2. <script type= "python" > def func(): HtmlPage.Window.Alert( "Hello world!" ) func() </script> * This source code was highlighted with Source Code Highlighter .
3. <script type= "python" > def func(): HtmlPage.Window.Alert( "Hello world!" ) func() </script> * This source code was highlighted with Source Code Highlighter .
5. <script type= "python" > def func(): HtmlPage.Window.Alert( "Hello world!" ) func() </script> * This source code was highlighted with Source Code Highlighter .
6. <script type= "python" > def func(): HtmlPage.Window.Alert( "Hello world!" ) func() </script> * This source code was highlighted with Source Code Highlighter .

<script type= "python" > def func(): HtmlPage.Window.Alert( "Hello world!" ) func() </script> * This source code was highlighted with Source Code Highlighter .

Next, go to MainPage.xaml.cs, where we will be looking for our script:

1. using System.Linq;
2. using System.Windows.Browser;
4. namespace mygestalt
5. {
6. public partial class MainPage
7. {
8. public MainPage ()
9. {
10. Initializecomponent ();
11. FindAndRunScript ();
12. }
14. private void FindAndRunScript ()
15. {
16. var scripts = HtmlPage.Document.GetElementsByTagName ( "script" );
17. var pythonScript = scripts.Where (x => x.GetProperty ( "type" ) .ToString () == "python" ) .First ();
18. PythonEngine.Run (pythonScript.GetProperty ( "innerHtml" ) .ToString ());
19. }
20. }
21. }

* This source code was highlighted with Source Code Highlighter .

Well, the implementation of PythonEngine:

1. using Microsoft.Scripting;
2. using Microsoft.Scripting.Hosting;
3. using Microsoft.Scripting.Silverlight;
5. namespace mygestalt
6. {
7. public static class PythonEngine
8. {
9. public static ScriptScope Run ( string source)
10. {
11. var setup = Configuration.LoadFromAssemblies (Package.GetManifestAssemblies ());
12. setup.HostType = typeof (BrowserScriptHost);
13. setup.DebugMode = true ;
14. var runtime = new ScriptRuntime (setup);
15. var engine = runtime. GetEngine ( "IronPython" );
16. var scope = engine.CreateScope ();
17. const string init = @ " import clr clr.AddReference ('System.Windows.Browser') from System.Windows.Browser import *";
19. ScriptSource initSource = engine.CreateScriptSourceFromString (init, SourceCodeKind.Statements);
20. initSource.Execute (scope);
21. var script = engine.CreateScriptSourceFromString (source, SourceCodeKind.Statements);
22. script.Execute (scope);
24. return scope;
25. }
26. }
27. }

* This source code was highlighted with Source Code Highlighter .

Run the application and see:

')

Finally

Here we have got our own Gestalt, the most interesting thing is that I looked at its source and found about the same implementation. My project can be found at http://code.google.com/p/mygestalt/ . Thanks to all!