First steps in Visual Studio with IronPython

[Zoltan Szilagyi]

Hi:

I would like to program my EV3 in Visual Studio with IronPython. I have found very nice guides for Xamarin and C#, but Xamarin somehow stopped working after it refreshed itself on my Windows PC, so I eventually installed the free PTVS (Python Tools for Visual Studio). I would like to use Python, because I already have some experience with that.

Could somebody provide a detailed guide about the following steps:
– installation of the required softwares
– creation of a simple EV3 program in IronPython from scratch (I am not familiar with VS, so this step should be really a step-by-step description, possibly with screenshots: how to reference the MonoBrickFirmware.dll file; how to select the IronPython language and the Monobrick framework; etc.)
– editing the IronPython code in Visual Studio (tips, tricks)
– compilation of the program
– transfer the compiled program (I have a USB wifi adapter on my EV3, so WinSCP would be an easy way for file transfer); but there might be a more elegant way to transfer the program automatically upon compilation.
– debugging the program (with wifi connection to EV3)

Any help in the above steps would be very much appreciated.
Cheers,
Zoltan

[Anders Søborg]

How are things going did you manage to get it working?

Anders

[Zoltan Szilagyi]

Hi Anders:

Thanks for your reply. I am a bit disappointed because of the low activity that my post has triggered. I am a kind of amateur programmer: in PhD work I wrote a command line application in Pascal for the simulation of a physical phenomenon, and now I am involved in a molecular biology research group’s activity where my colleagues are happy to use my text manipulation scripts written in Python. This is why I prefer Python.

I tried to play with PTVS but I haven’t got much success. I could open a new project, the desired interpreter (IronPython) was selected and the MonoBrickFirmware DLL file was “referenced” in the project so I can see its “content”, but I was not able to write the simplest code that works on EV3. I am not really familiar with object oriented languages, but I believe the simplest working example would be a great help for me. Where I have been able to get can be seen here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52074994/PTVS/PTVS_screen_2014_0310.jpg

Once again: the most useful help would be a simple IronPython example written for EV3. Beyond that I still expect some help in the following matters:
– compilation of the program
– transfer the compiled program (via wifi connection with WinSCP, or directly from VS upon compilation)
– debugging possibilities

Trying PTVS is very easy for everyone, since its components can be downloaded for free:

Thanks anyone for the kick-off in this approach, in advance.
Zoltan

[Zoltan Szilagyi]

I am sorry, the CodePlex (PTVS download) link is missing from my previous post:
http://pytools.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=PTVS%20Installation

Zoltan

[Anders Søborg]

Hi

Sorry for the low activity on this subject – I think that most people use MonoBrick with C#. Anyway my experience with Python/IronPython is close to nothing. But it must be possible to compile a IronPython “Hello world” program and get a exe file. Are you able to to that? If yes then transfer that program to the EV3 and run it from a shell. Then you should see the console output in the shell. Then the next step would be to use some of the functions from the MonoBrick.dll… Please let me know how it goes

Anders

[Zoltan Szilagyi]

Hi Anders:

I am sorry not responding your last message earlier. I am completely stuck with the Python approach, because I haven’t been able to compile the simplest program in PTVS. Despite the fact that I have zero experience with C# that would be a good direction for me too, because I could expect support from others. Could you recommend me something where I should start. I think I need an interactive development environment (preferably free one) and a good book about C# for beginners.

Thank you for your help.
Zoltan

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