Let's sort this out historically. When Sun Microsystem's virtual machine (VM) paradigm emerged in the mid 1990's, the high-level programming language Java became the idiom for the new "soft" computer. Java's object-oriented architecture allowed it to scope from the lowest-level OS tasks (reads, writes to disk and screen), but much of the mid- and high-level tools were missing, e.g. common GUI features, text parsing, list sorting. The missing functionality is implemented gradually with nuts-and-bolts Java functions and by porting libraries to Java (GL4Java).

The cascade of "100% pure java" ports has finally led to the gobbling up of the elegant Python scripting language, which is also object-oriented. But that is only half of the story. As Java devours Python, Python also devours Java. In one manifestation, Jython is Python written in Java rather than C. It has its own interpreter "Jython" and compiler "Jythonc", both of which can draw on all of Java's classes. Conversely, Jythonc will create a Java class which can be imported by the Java interpreter "Java" and compiler "Javac." Java programmers will have the luxury of importing and using succinct Jython classes rather than writing the lines of verbose native Java code.

The bewildering complexities are elucidated by Bill in Jython for Java Programmers, which presents Jython both as a standalone, Java-equipped language and as the class implementation within Java. Its three parts are dedicated to Jython's basics (very similar to a Python tutorial), Jython's internals, and Jython's incorporation into GUI, database and Web applications. The book follows in the New Riders' tradition of exhaustive, implementation-centred publishing. Jython is not a Java foundation class, but Bill's book is a cornerstone in its own right. --Peter Leopold