Microsoft abandoned IronPython (and its sister project IronRuby) in late 2010, after which Hugunin left to work at Google.

For example, NumPy was wrapped by Microsoft in 2011, allowing code and libraries dependent on it to be run directly from .NET Framework.

[29] Following recruitment of the project lead in August 2004, IronPython was made available as part of Microsoft's Shared Source initiative.

One of IronPython's key advantages is in its function as an extensibility layer to application frameworks written in a .NET language.

This script can be supplied by a third-party client-side application developer and passed into the server-side framework through an interface.

In this case, assume that the .NET Framework implements a class, BookDictionary, in a module called BookService, and publishes an interface into which IronPython scripts can be sent and executed.

This script, when sent to that interface, will iterate over the entire list of books maintained by the framework, and pick out those written by Booker Prize-winning authors.

The performance characteristics of IronPython compared to CPython, the reference implementation of Python, depends on the exact benchmark used.

[33] IronPython may perform better in Python programs that use threads or multiple cores, as it has a JIT compiler, and also because it doesn't have the Global Interpreter Lock.