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Mono makes it easy to give access to all kinds of .net libraries from inside Parrot (the new high power VM for Perl and probably Python and Ruby.) And it makes it easy for Parrot to add the ability to turn perl code into .net code (I think. does anyone know how much mono code is being used in parrot?).

The parts of .NET that are standard are safe. The parts that aren't standard aren't required to Mono and can be replaced with other libraries.

Sure MS can keep changing APIs, but that will hurt them and their customers too. But even if they did, Mono is still a big gain as a Linux development plateform.

The people from Mono explain this at Mono / FAQ

Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and their CLR, including Windows Forms and everything else, ARE the standards

Mono's implementation of System.Windows.Forms isn't done yet, but it's apparently coming along nicely. There's a heavyweight version implemented in terms of Winelib and a lightweight version that wraps Gtk#. Publishers of apps that stick to the Gtk# compatible subset of Windows.Forms (i.e. don't P/Invoke Win32 and don't override Wndproc) will be able to put a penguin on their boxes as an extra bullet point. (Yes, I know Microsoft will not be such a publisher.)

Mono seems to be written with threading that only works on Linux and Windows. If you see their release pages, they only have Linux packages.

Several days ago I posted a thread on mono-devel about FreeBSD 4.8 not working and only got two replies - both confirming the problems. OSX seems to have the same basic problems.

This is even for console (text) applications - they just won't run.

Has anyone been able to get a working mono on FreeBSD 4.8 or 5.1? Can you tell us how?

I'm not sure they are actually releasing an 'official and legal version'. When they came and spoke to my school a few times last year, it often sounded like what they are hocking is actually mono, but making it sound liek they are fully supporting it and leading development on it.Website for mono.

They haven't come this year yet, so maybe there is some news, but one of my buddies is the campus Microsoft rep, and I haven't heard anything about it from him. (Interestingly, he also is a member of the local linux users group)

I do a lot of ASP3.0/SQL2k and some utility development on Win32, taking a stab at .NET. It would be nice to move over to Mono.

Anyway, I've done a bit of poking around and ran across SharpDevelop - AKA #develop . It's open source a la GPL and looks a lot like Visual Studio, and compiles C# and VB.NET; has C# => VB.NET code conversion; does projects or files; has syntaxing for the whole MS shebang. It's a .97 - this build was released Friday 9/12/2K3, officially in beta, and you can get the binaries here, go snag the source here, and get the MS.NET1.1SDK here.

To those folks who hiss and moan about the whole GNOME/.NET/Mono thing, take a gander at the rationale before playing jump to conclusions (mp3).

SharpWT - AKA #WT is a .NET port of Java SWT on both Windows/.NET and Linux/Mono platforms. So...you can develop your .NET apps to run on both Win32 and Linux with pretty much the same GUI. Neat, eh?

Anyway, intrepid Windows Developer, if you can pry yourself away from the MSDN Library for a few minutes, you might find there's something to this Mono business.

I do a lot of ASP3.0/SQL2k and some utility development on Win32, taking a stab at .NET. It would be nice to move over to Mono.

Anyway, I've done a bit of poking around and ran across SharpDevelop - AKA #develop . It's open source a la GPL and looks a lot like Visual Studio, and compiles C# and VB.NET; has C# => VB.NET code conversion; does projects or files; has syntaxing for the whole MS shebang. It's a .97 - this build was released Friday 9/12/2K3, officially in beta, and you can get the binaries here, go snag the source here, and get the MS.NET1.1SDK here.

To those folks who hiss and moan about the whole GNOME/.NET/Mono thing, take a gander at the rationale before playing jump to conclusions (mp3).

SharpWT - AKA #WT is a .NET port of Java SWT on both Windows/.NET and Linux/Mono platforms. So...you can develop your .NET apps to run on both Win32 and Linux with pretty much the same GUI. Neat, eh?

Anyway, intrepid Windows Developer, if you can pry yourself away from the MSDN Library for a few minutes, you might find there's something to this Mono business.

Are you sure about that? Granted, that's VB.NET, and not VB pre-.NET, but it's still VB. It's also still under development, but the work is being done.

.NET works on Linux too with Mono. Why not compare Mono/Linux to .NET/Windows so we wont compare apples and oranges.

.NET works on *nix. Not perfectly, but Mono is getting way better with every release. While I seriously doubt Microsoft would ever write a .NET Framework for any other OS, I do expect Mono to kick off .NET usage in other places.

Java versus .NET is becoming a ubiquitous topic. It's been the subject of debate since .NET beta 1. Microsoft and Sun both have "independent" studies conducted to prove that their platform (J2EE/.NET) is better and both have convincing arguments. There is no perfect language or platform to solve every programming problem - sometimes it's C++, sometimes it's Python, sometimes it's something else - it really depends on the problem.

It's no secret that one reason Microsoft created C# is to compete directly with Java. It's pure ignorance to say that C# is proprietary and that you're locked-in to Windows. C# and the CLI (.NET) is an approved ECMA standard. This is something SUN was unwilling to do with Java. For this reason, in a sense, Java remains far more proprietary than C#. It's too early in C#'s life to say that it won't be ported to other platforms - look at Mono. There is a lot of FUD being disseminated about "Microsof is going to sue Ximian, et al. for Mono" blah,blah,blah. That's not going to happen. Microsoft has already released the source code to the CLI with one intention of "People developing their own CLI implementations will find the Shared Source CLI an indispensable guide and adjunct to the ECMA standards.". So, for the argument that C# and the CLI are proprietary and one is bound to Windows is just plain ridiculous.

Syntactically, C# and Java are extremely similar. They both derive from C++. Structurally, they are very similar as well. They are both OO languages, everything is a class, etc. Side-by-side they look very similar. There are numerous small details which make C# "friendlier" than Java, ie. C# has no requirement that the file be named after the class. However, C# has a lot of other advantages over Java. C# can make use of pointers. Java has no option on parameter passing - Objects are passed by reference, value types are passed by value. While C# has the same limit on objects, you are able to use pointers and it also supports boxing. C# supports operator overloading as well. On the merits of the languages alone, C# is stronger than Java. It should be expected since it was developed from scratch nearly 7 years after Java arrived.

As far as performance, Java leaves a lot to be desired. I won't belabor this issue. If you'd like a demonstration of the difference between the run-time execution of .NET vs Java, pick your favorite VM and run Forte, then run Visual Studio .NET (it's written in C#) and decide for yourself. Java run-time performance alone is enough to dissuade some developers.

Java does come as close to a RAD language as can be. Java applications can be developed quickly with far fewer bugs and errors as a comparable C/C++ application with the benefit of garbage collection as well. For this Java gets an "A". It greatly simplifies the process of rapidly developing database and other applications.

Is Java going away? Hardly. But like it or not, C# and the CLI are here to stay as well. It's only a matter of time before the CLI is ported to other platforms and environments just like the JVM.

lest we forget that microsoft did -not- shut down the open source .Net compatible project, i'll even grant a link.
Mono

As for a claim that .net hasn't taken off, I most strongly disagree. Any company whose business requirements have them developing more than a single application for windows have nearly all converted to .Net in my experience.

with finalization on install, there is absolutely no performance loss between straight-C and C#. in fact, depending on your straight-C compiler, the C# code can run better (finalization takes specific processor optimizations into account).

every coder i know that develops windows apps is working within the .Net framework. The problem with the perceived lack of adoption, is the broad branding of the development tools -and- the internet services as .Net.

True, widespread adoption of the .Net web services has hardly budged (aside from some passport authentication). However, the framework and the development advances are most certainly in use.

granted, this is based only on my own personal experience, but i deal with a number of vendors, and have a great number of contacts and coworkers whose experiences agree.

yes, .Net only works on Microsoft - but the fact that it -does- work on 95% of business desktops (as opposed to Java which requires significant finicking to get going on those same desktops) is also a benefit for those who are dealing with business realities and not philosophical preferences.

I wouldn't be so sure about #develop being the official Mono IDE because it was only fairly recently that it became Mono-compatible (and I'm not even sure if it's already mono-compatible).

And about Eclipse being ported to mono, it's on the mono homepage, it was ported on May 10th, there's even a screenshot.

I'm not aware of the details, but they probably ported the whole SWT to Mono using their java compiler and then they could build the whole thing.

I wouldn't be so sure about #develop being the official Mono IDE because it was only fairly recently that it became Mono-compatible (and I'm not even sure if it's already mono-compatible).

And about Eclipse being ported to mono, it's on the mono homepage, it was ported on May 10th, there's even a screenshot.

I'm not aware of the details, but they probably ported the whole SWT to Mono using their java compiler and then they could build the whole thing.

Right now, in 2003, Linux has no equivalent to Dotnet or WinFS nor any plan for such features . Such VMs and DBs that do exist are completely unexploited (and often impossible to exploit) from the kernel, the core tools and the popular desktops and office applications.

I'm assuming that your referring to a Linux system as a whole and not explicitly the kernel. The reason why these shouldn't be part of the kernel are pretty straightforward, .NET is a development framework and WinFS is a database driven file system. That said, the equivalents for .NET would be Mono / dotGNU and for WinFS you could use Oracle's IFS , not free but then neither is Windows.

The Mono FAQ has a section devoted to it.

http://www.go-mono.com/

Not functional yet, but heh, every project's got to start somewhere. </shameless plug>

The .Net framework and development tools are also free, and can be downloaded. And efforts are being made for making .Net portable. Examples include Microsoft's own Rotor (Windows, FreeBSD and Mac OSX), Mono (Linux) and DotGNU (Linux).

Perhaps Mono has been overlooked as a large factor in Novell's purchase of Ximian and general alliance with Linux. Becoming a leader in Mono development would allow Novell to be seen as going head-to-head with Microsoft's flagship, .NET, in the ultimate "embrace and extend" (Open Source Software).

Maybe you would like to adjust your preferences. There is quite clearly a link in the great-grandparent

Your FAQ does

How is Mono going to be a complete .Net implementation if you don't implement Windows.Forms? How will you implement Windows.Forms without steping on Microsofts toes?

What will you do when Microsoft fails to submit future C# implementations to ECMA and ISO? What if they decide to change their RAND policy to charge just a few cents per copy of .Net implementations? Have you had a patent lawyer run a complete patent search for any possible submarines?

The FAQ is a dead giveaway, item #3 specifically. It basically says "We know we're going to have to infringe some patents, so we're going to stick our heads in the sand and hope Microsoft do not notice"

Did nobody pay any attention when Microsoft started to extend Java? Yeah, Microsoft would never subvert a published "standard"

That's funny, the Mono site says:

Mono is an implementation of the .NET development platform.

Hopefully this will be updated to reflect the fact that Mono will only ever be a partial implementation of Dotnet, and that porting Dotnet applications to Mono will not be possible?

After all, we wouldn't want to mislead people, would we?

Right here What, you don't think Windows.Forms are important?

There is also nothing to stop Microsoft from any later version or .Net extensions without submitting it to ECMA and including patented methods. Microsoft have yet to publicly promise that this will not happen (In fact, they have been very cagey about wether this is possible).

If you trust Microsoft, you're a fool. Look at what Sun had to go through with Microsoft "Java"

127 comments at this point, and a quick search showed that not one mentioned Mono! This is very surprising being as, like Wine and Samba, Mono is a project with the specific purpose of cloning an existinng Microsoft technology and making it available on other platforms. And Mono is an even greater threat than the others in the sense that Wine and Samba are Linux only while the Mono project's long term goal is to port to just about everything.

There has been a concern for some time that Mono may be on shaky ground IP-wise. Certainly MS opened the C# and IL specifications by giving it to a valid standards body (ECMA), but they did not include all (or even the majority) of the .Net libraries in the open spec. Considering that MS hold patents on some of this technology this makes it a risky situation because even a 'clean-room' clone like Mono or DotGNU Portable.NET can infringe patents, leaving them open even if no copyrights are infringed. The real problem is that, like Java, the true power of .Net lies not in the languages but in the libraries.

This is of great concern to me because of a descision I made last winter which was based, at least partly, on the existance and viability of Mono. Up to this point MS has made no moves against Mono, even providing them some back-door help upon occaision. Perhaps they are just using Mono as another nail in Java's coffin and will turn on Miguel de Icaza the minute he is of no more use to them.

However I find it difficult to believe that someone as smart as Miguel would allow himself to be used as a pawn. (Leaving me hope that he has covered his bases on this.) In the meantime the whole SCO thing can influence IP rights in two directions: In one we get a future where IP rights are king and anyone can take you down for the smallest mis-use or percieved mis-use. in the other way we get a future where IP rights are tempered with a little reality.

In my opinion one of those paths leads to doom. In the meantime, I might want to start re-thinking my plans...

Here's what I wonder, is getting the croup better or worse than getting mono?

Because mono is what I lost most of last year to.

Hi!

Executive summary:
Yes.

Boring details:
I'm goofing off, perusing SlashDot at the end of a dinner break. We're shipping a big project to a customer on Monday--the project is written in .Net (mostly C#, some components in VB), including Windows forms and ASP.Net web pages. (Why both? The project incorporates multiple applications for different kinds of users.) As part of pre-shipment testing we're in the midst of extensive testing, including load testing.

The Windows applications communicate with the data tier using SOAP/XML, using synchronous messaging. Practically every message involves a database transaction with SQL Server 2000. Across a range of loads we are seeing round-trip message responses (from receipt of the inbound XML message to return from the web service) averaging less than 90 ms per message. That 90 ms average can be misleading--some of our messages involve extensive processing and/or lots of data. Some of the transaction work we're doing with SVG images involve SOAP messages with payloads greater than 1 MB, so the average gets dragged out.

Based on our testing, we anticipate supporting hundreds of simultaneous users--in a near-real-time environment--from a single web service. As we scale out on larger projects we may need to scale the number of web servers (although IIS on Windows 2003 is supposed to be substantially faster--YMMV), but we won't need to scale the database. Using a similar messaging architecture for a different client I have a project supporting 400+ users on a single SQL Server.

This is SlashDot, after all...
Obviously you're going to get a lot of "why not use...?" posts, and I'm sure I'll get flamed for having the temerity to admit to using .Net. And recommending it. But you asked, so I'll answer: .Net is scaleable in terms of the final application, and .Net is scaleable in terms of the size of the development team that is involved. This project involves 19 developers (a total of 60+ individual projects in the nightly build) and we're able to manage the entire thing remarkably well. Developing web service applications with .Net is remarkably easy to do; developing sockets apps is unbelievably simpler than using WinInet.dll. And the web developers are extremely happy working in ASP.Net--I don't know where you heard that ASP.Net is slower than ASP, but that's simply not true. ASP.Net is significantly faster.

With regard to other comments
I'm the data/messaging architect on the project: I can speak to the comments about messaging, reflection, and SQL Server. As with any Microsoft-based development project, you have to think carefully, and think critically, about how to design your application. Microsoft will always give you a quick! easy! fun! way to rapidly produce a prototype. You have to dig deeper, and think harder, to produce a scaleable application. The quick! easy! fun! technology du jour is .Net Remoting. Quick to prototype, barks in production. Like OLE, it's a great way to make a Pentium 4 box emulate an original 8086 IBM PC. (Far smarter to manage communication with XML-based messaging. It just takes more coding.)

That SQL Server doesn't permit triggers to be written in C#--so? Transact-SQL is suitable for database development. We could ask for more (such as integrating stored procedures and other database code into Visual SourceSafe). There is talk that the next version of SQL Server will permit coding in .Net languages--that'd be cool, but I'll wait and see.

The single most compelling argument for .Net
Mono--an Open Source implementation of the .Net Framework. You might look into this particularly for clients that are choking on server pricing--but you might also pay careful attention, because a robust Mono project will encourage/force Microsoft to compete on features and functionality, instead of a take-what-we-give-you mentality. That's a Very Good Thing.

First off, I would just like to say that I am not an `MS Bootlicker'... I prefer the GNU/Linux platform for pretty much everything I do, except for videogames (and even then... I run a hell of alot of them on WineX). I am a student at Drexel University who has attended more than a few talks about the .Net archetecture. While this does not make me an expert, It does give me some knowledge about how and why to use .Net.

Second, some definitions of .Net in general can be found here.

.NET is like Java, only incompatible with everything other than Windows. (sic)
That statement is false. Microsoft only relesed the finished Common Language Runtime for Windows, but they also relesed a good portion of the source code that makes coding the Common Language Runtime possible. There have been several ports/versions, which include Rotor, Mono and dotGNU.

The only added feature is language-neutrality (you can use more than just C# to code .NET objects) although that exists under Java, too, although to a lesser extent (There are many compilers that take many non-Java programming languages as imput and put out Java bytecode, however those are not very widely used and supported)
And That is not one of the marketing points of Java. Many advocates of Java that I have spoken to (Which, in this case, is not many... most people I know despise it) have a `one language to solve all' mentality. They would program everything in it, given the chance. .Net, in a sense, is revolutionary in this respect. It makes it possible to easially integrate several languages together, as long as they can all compile to MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language). How many of you people have tried to integrate C and Perl together? What about Visual Basic and C/C++ (VS6-)? (and before anyone says ``why the hell would you want to do that?'' to me, it is much easier to build windows interfaces in VB than C/C++... and in come cases, it is much easier to write faster or Object Oriented code in C/C++). The amount of work neccesary is close to prohibitive in some respects. When it isn't, slower interpereted code is produced instead. Not with .Net, though. Just compile everythign to MSIL, and then when you run the program for the fist time, *poof*... it changes into actual, optimized executable code.

Java is... the only language that runs on every major and most minor platforms.
Such as... ?? The only reason that .Net isn't on a system (that I know of) is because Microsoft is trying to be competitive in that area, and the actual manuacturer doesn't wish to convert the code itself. (e.g.: Micrsoft is competing with PalmOS for the PDA Market, so it obviously won't relesese .Net for that environment. In addition, Palm might not have relesed the programming specs for PalmOS, which would make it hard for microsoft to do so. However, what is stopping Palm from releasing the CLR for PalmOS? Not much.)

75% of webservers don't run Windows. 100% of cellphones don't run Windows. 60% of PDAs don't run Windows. Let's face it: .NET is just a desktop solution, nothing more.
You don't need windows to implement the .Net CLR. The code has been published and is available for free online. Anyone who wants to can make their own version. Even comes with documentation, and builds on Windows, OSX, and FreeBSD.

The main problem with .Net is that it ties you to a specific OS which makes it a pain from a business economics point of view

The devil is in the details.
Damn right... it's in the details... And like details in Java are not used, detaisl in C# too. Details don't represent a big improve, because if you use details, that most of people don't know (remeber, most of people comme from VB!) then your code is much more difficult to read.

You can make a fully compliant CLR on another platform which never goes near COM but still runs full .NET applications. You wish! Even the M$ representatives say, you can't be fully compliant, because the API is not public. Just take a look at Mono !

...but at least it's far more consistent than PHP is or probably will ever be.
PHP5 should be equivalent to ASP for OO, but please ASP.NET is not really interesting, compared to PHP: facility, ease of use ...

Return to class, you obviously have some catching-up to do.
You should attend to one!! :)
I have achieved it! (MsC)

Roughly half the jobs listed in Windows want at least some .NET or C# experience. The majority of the others are J2EE/Java.

This article is just more FUD. There is no doubt that .NET, and ASP.NET in particular (aspx pages) is the future of software development on Windows - on Linux also, if you believe Mono...

How the hell is this insightful!? It's FUD!

Windows XP has USB 2.0

Wow, what an innovation... they have drivers for USB 2.0 devices. Wow... So do we.

it has low-latency audio

Let's see, does Linux...? Yep, we got that too.

it can play DVDs

Wow, do you think other platforms could do that? Yes, I think so.

it has translucent windows

Well actually, it doesn't. However, these guys have had it for a while and these guys are pretty close.

built-in NAT

Linux has had this since version 2.0. It worked great even back in 1999.

drag-and-drop CD recording

OKay, I'll conceed on this point, but I'll definitely mention you could find this here before Microsoft ever had a clue. As for XP drag and drop CD recording... it still doesn't work right.

an MPEG-4 media player

Once again, I reference these guys again. What's so impressive about that? Microsoft aren't even the people who introduced it.

it has an encrypted, compressed file system

Well, let's see here... yes, we definite have that too. As a matter of fact, I've been using encrypted file systems in Linux for years. As far as I recall, I was doing that before Windows was. No wait, Windows still doesn't offer encryption beneath the file system. Weak.

they have fine-grained access controls

Only very recently. Linux has enjoyed ACL from here and here as well.

they have a common language runtime

Funny thing is it was implemented by the open source community faster than Microsoft did.

They are pushing and developing modern programming languages so that we aren't all stuck programming in C.

A language is a tool Some languages are good for some tasks, some are better for others. For example, you couldn't quite write an operating system in Lisp like you could with C. To make this point shows how much of a fool you are. By the way, GCC compiles langauges other than C too.

Some of this technology sucks, and most of it they didn't invent, but they are pushing new technology.

Yes, most of it does suck but none of it is new. Microsoft only pushes regurgitations of what the rest of the industry has had (often for years).

(I also know that most of this stuff is available on linux, but it's also kind of a pain in the ass.)

I don't see any problems. None of what you mentioned was hard to find nor is any of it any harder to use than in Windows. For example, I play a DVD by loading my DVD player and press the button with the little triangle on it (play).

Your "points" fall down to absolutely nothing. Microsoft offers no advantages, just disadvantages over open source technologies.

You sir are a major corporate whore, completely deceived, clueless, not too bright, and giving free marketing hype to a multibillion dollar company. How does that make you feel?

actually Microsoft can buy mono copyright becuase all the developers have signed over their copyrights to Ximian. sneeky huh :^)

from the faq:

"The Mono runtime and the Mono C# Compiler are also available under a proprietary license for those who can not use the LGPL and the GPL in their code."

For licensing details, contact mono-licensing@ximian.com

A "nice platform to work with"? I see. This sounds about as convincing as the Mono Rationale document, which reduces to the same kind of vacuous assertion.

I would be very interested in studies comparing Dotnet against Java for large developments. Given the undeniable similarity of the basic technology, the existence of VS.NET-like tools for Java and not forgetting of course the minor detail that Dotnet is useless for anything not running on Windows, it's pretty hard to see what great advantage Dotnet is going to offer a typical enterprise.

I've no idea what we're supposed to make of the bald assertion of "compatability". Compatible with what? And necessary for whom? Your method and reasoning, never mind motivation, remain very far from being clear.

I trust it will not come as too much of a surprise to learn that, outside the world of Mono hype, justication for substantial projects is generally required before they start. But, as you have deigned to offer some ex post facto rationale, it's worthwhile examining this in detail:

Parrot is or was intending to support the CLI bytecode set in addition to its own. It's therefore hard to see how Miguel's criticism can be of this bytecode set - or is he concerned about those he'll never use?

Guile is bytecode VM targeted at Scheme and as such is relevant. In fact, there are plenty of good arguments for the use of a Scheme-based intermediate language on a VM, as the botched 'meta-data' implementations of Java and C# are starting to reveal.

Regarding the Kaffe Java VM, it's interesting to see that you switch arguments here to complain about its slow development rather than any technical flaws. The reason for this is of course that there are no less than three major, high-quality implementations of Java 2 for Linux on Intel, plus the possibility of licensing the source for other platforms. Regardless of this, naturally the Mono crew were free to start with this rather than start from scratch, but that would be assuming that they're focused on delivering capability rather than hype.

Your last paragraph seems almost desperate in its attempt to deny the momentum of Java. A glance at SourceForge, job listings or a wander around any large corporation would show that the growth of Java continues unabated, and is leagues ahead of Dotnet, never mind the Mono knock-off. It is possible that some major desktop apps will be written for Dotnet, but I shall not be holding my breath for Photoshop on Mono.

Yes I have. Have you? If so, what did you think of it?

I see a lot of handing waving on this page http://go-mono.com/class-library.html

Is it just me or thing's like

Class Library and Win32 dependencies. There are a few spots where the Win32 foundation is exposed to the class library (for example, the HDC and HWND properties in the GDI+). Casual inspection suggests that these can be safely mapped to Gdk's GC and GdkWindow pointers without breaking anything.

The only drawback is that support for PInvoke of Win32 code won't be available. An alternate solution would be to use portions of Wine, or even to use Wine as our toolkit.

...make you wonder wether this is suppose to be a commercially viable product?

I'm not trying to hate. But frankly, mono seems like a huge hack.

I can't believe how many times I've had to repeat this. This is not "Microsoft's IP". The CLI and C# have been submitted to ECMA. Mono is as liable for producing its own .NET CLI as anyone else is for creating a Java compiler or JVM.

have never been particularly clear about why they are doing this

I think they've made it sufficiently clear, but that's just me.

what precisely was wrong with established OSS efforts such as Parrot, Guile, Kaffe

I don't know. Maybe they suck? Why are there 26 window managers for X11? Why write Ruby and Python if there's Perl? Why do we need Linux if there's BSD? Why is there OpenOffice if there's StarOffice? Am I getting myself across yet?

Miguel and co. were too late to appoint themselves leaders of the other projects

Isn't that quite the rational conclusion.

much).. It's good to see Sun evolve Java into a new language , but couldn't they have done it before MS pushes something similar down our throats. You might like Mono . But how about this this ?

straight from the mono faq:
you will be able to build GUI applications. Indeed, that is our main focus. We will provide both the Windows.Forms API and the Gtk# API.

and they will be using wine to implement System.Windows.Forms.

straight from the mono faq:
you will be able to build GUI applications. Indeed, that is our main focus. We will provide both the Windows.Forms API and the Gtk# API.

and they will be using wine to implement System.Windows.Forms.

ASP.NET is nearly finished, and there's already an alpha (?) ASP.NET server available for Linux here. Code new apps in as web-based services or in C#/Windows .NET Forms and port to GTK# or Qt# when ready.

That's the way we're doing it.

The short answer is yes, they will be doing ASP.NET and window forms. And yes, they will be using wine for window forms.

I was suprised that things like the GUI in .NET are still very windows centric. It will make it difficult to port wholesale to other platforms.

Mono is an open source implementation of .Net Development Framework.
You can find it here

There is a c/c++ IDE option if needed, but its convoluted as hell!
from the faq:
"...you can import the glade toolkit bindings into Eclipse running on Mono using the open source IKVM Java virtual machine for .NET by Jeroen Frijters..."

love, peace, hope, dock

miguel

RAD is a myth.
LOL what an asinine comment. You write a complete app in C or C++ (dont' be using templates) and i'll do the same in c#, i'll not only complete it far quicker than you i'll use 50%+ less lines of code.

Cross platform support from Microsoft is a siren song leading into a slippery trap.
I missed if anyone said microsoft was making this cross platform. Who said that? I said it was being done if thats what you mean i never gave the slightest hint that microsoft had anything to do with it, as a matter of fact on the contrary if your ass would have followed the link provied you see that Ximian (makers of Redcarpet and major contributor to gnome) are the primary force behind Mono aka C# on linux as well as many other platforms. Try to RTFA next time.

The fact that it came from Microsoft is rather compelling.
Irrelovent.

Standardizing the language is of very limited value. How many of the important APIs have been standardized? APIs form lock-in, not languages.
Bullshit, again if you would have read the fucking site i linked you to you'd know the answers to these questions. Here is another link Mono .24 has been released

Its unfortunate for all of use that there are people like you. You have a hate for microsoft, like most of use including myself but your brain is tainted because you cannot look past the fact that somethign that is now independant from (but strongly used by) microsoft. Microsoft heavily uses c, c++ and asm too, do you hate those languages? Would you hate linux if microsoft suddenly contributed 50% of the kernel code and it was commited? Probably... how sad.

C# is the perfect blend of vb java and c++, it has rad as well as power and even cross platform support coming up quick (http://www.go-mono.com). C# has a very good free IDE (SharpDevelop) which is also going to be cross platform.

So what does c# have going against it? m$ haters that won't look past the fact that c# came from m$. I don't like m$ either but c# will join the ranks of c++ and c in regards to a publised standard language unlike java.

Too often we relate some issue as being a Microsoft invention and thus evil when all along it's been incorporated in a different form in our favourite OS.

Call me skeptical, but did occur to anyone else that Microsoft picked FreeBSD because
1) they despise the GPL for what it represents and
2) Mono is being developed on Linux?

Don't get me wrong, I run several FreeBSD servers and prefer the ports system over RPM. It just unnerves me when the Microsoft marketing machine starts mucking around on my chosen platform.

As a postscript, you all should be aware that PHP may well become the best platform for deploying .NET. Here's why and here's why this is irrelevant.

here

Platforms for C#: 0

"Eventually MSFT will have to deliver your "mission critical" ASP runtime for Apache, and the world will be a better place because of it."

Why wait for Microsoft when ASP.Net is already being ported?