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De Icaza Responds on Mono and GNOME
miguel writes: "Here is my reply to the various questions on Mono, the future of GNOME and the Register statements." Linux Today has a copy of the email as well.
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GNOME had always tried to have a good support for multiple programming languages, because we realize that no matter how much we loved C as a programming language, there was a large crowd of people out there that would like to use the GNOME libraries fromtheir favorite programming language, which might not necessarily be C.
This is the reason having Mono at the heart of Gnome would be a good idea. Base it on the CLI and suddenly any language that is ".Net-enabled" is usable under Gnome.
It's about choice. Isn't that what Open Source is all about?
Wrong. Programmer's lives are exciting, as long as you like Computer Science and enjoy tweaking with the little bits, discovering new things. Now, if Miguel started writing Unix software thinking he would be rich, surrounded by girls and driving Romero's Ferrari, he's far beyond dumbness.
Miguel has made many positive arguments for his prior statments. And thanks to the Register for obfuscating the variables.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Linux is a copy of a proprietary OS, Unix, which was invented by a monopolistic company, AT&T. Miguel pointed this out in the email, if you actually read it. Most free software has been free re-implementations of closed software or technologies.
Liberty in your lifetime
One thing though. Miguel says:
This just strikes me as overly hopeful optimism to think that Microsoft is going to give up their hard fought and long defeneded applications barrier to entry.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
The biggest problem with .NET is that it is a MS initiative and controlled at its most basic level's by MS. Anyone who thinks they can safely develop a project under it without fear that MS will change the APIs the instant they actually start competing at some level is an idiot.
And therein lies the rub of any development using MS tools. Undocumented, incompatible changes to the underlying APIs at MS's whims for MS's gain.
Miguel:
> or ourselves. I want to be as compatible as
> possible with the APIs that were published by
> Microsoft.
Alan:
Be assured that the day they decide you are a nuisance the VM will acquire a patented neat feature that kills you off. Just ask the Samba people.
(from Alan's reply to Miguel's message)
Could someone please play this email backwards, I'm afraid I'll be brainwashed into a Microsoft slut by the time I'm done reading it.
Over and over again, Miguel De Icaza has displayed the same sort of breathless excitement over Microsoft technologies that I'd expect to see from a newbie, not a developer of his caliber. It's extraordinarily short-sighted for him to believe that he'll be able to keep up with Microsoft. This isn't a matter of talent. Microsoft has shown, time and time again, that it has no problem locking out other vendors using API changes and whatever other means available.
Miguel seems to be ignoring the fact that Microsoft will very likely do everything it can to keep Mono uselessly lagging. They've embraced and extended every technology they've adopted, and even their own APIs shift constantly. I realize that the .NET Framework looks like a different approach, and Microsoft is acting like it's going to start playing nice. If it happens, it'd be a first for Microsoft. I personally have my doubts, and history backs me up. What a shame that a talented developer like Miguel doesn't know better than to trust them.
-zack
There is a point in your life when you realize that you have written enough destructors, and have spent enough time tracking down a memory leak, and you have spend enough time tracking down memory corruption, and you have spent enough time using low-level insecure functions, and you have implemented way too many linked lists [1]
Last time I felt that way, I dicovered Lisp. Java also fits the bill (and so does C++ with STL, BOOST and ACE.
Good article on this appeared today:
.NET SDK, the cross-language support looks impressive, but the illusion holds true only until realizing that all languages in the mix are virtually identical. Microsoft has actually invented the concept of skinnable language: changing a language's most superficial aspects, and claiming the result to be a new language. There is only One True Language that is C#, and "skins" offered by Microsoft and third parties. Just like in GUIs, these skins will alter the system's look and feel, add a few features, but never compete with a fully new toolkit.
One Runtime to Bind Them All
Some quotes:
The reality looks much darker instead. The CLR is not truly language-neutral, and it will ostensibly favor languages that look a lot like C#. Those not in this group will be severely bastardized, producing dialects which are really "C# with another syntax"; look at ISE's Eiffel# (or even Microsoft's own VB.NET and J#) for great examples. Programmers' choice will be limited to superficial features: whether to delimit their blocks with curly braces, Begin/End or parentheses. It's also worth notice that the CTS/CTS do not allow use of the full set of CLR features; for example, unsigned integers are supported by the CLR but not considered language-neutral, simply because many languages share Java's abomination for the signed/unsigned duality (this includes Microsoft's own VB) and there's no good solution for this issue.
-cut-
Playing with the
Seasoned industry programmers will notice that the above is very much like Java and the Java VM. They are right, the above is just like Java.
The CIL has one feature not found in Java though: it is byte code representation that is powerful enough to be used as a target for many languages: from C++, C, Fortran and Eiffel to Lisp and Haskell including things like Java, C#, JavaScript and Visual Basic in the mix.
But this is surely misleading? It's true that this doesn't exist at present, but there's nothing in theory to stop it being implemented (isn't Java sufficiently "powerful" for this to be done?)
If Java is capable of doing it, then why not work on making compilers for those languages to Java's bytecode instead of working with a new language?
Kinda like Slashdot...
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That doesn't help much. If it has patented yet unlicensed technology, then it can't be legally used in countries where the patent is recognized.
This is why free crypto software for a long time had an internal-RSA vs. external-RSAREF configuration switch for a long time, with the stipulation that RSAREF had to be used within the U.S.---as using internal RSA would leave you open to an infringement suit. (RSAREF was the only freely licensed implementation of RSA available, before the patent expired last year)
iSKUNK!
So what is Microsoft aiming for? Probably two things:
- Kill Java. They need to kill it before it becomes too wide-spread. They have a really good shot at doing so given Java's performance problems [insert thousands of flames from Java developers here] and C#'s advanced features like better encapsulation (you don't need to call set() and get() methods, you can map them to the = operator, for example).
- "Write once, run on Microsoft". In order to run .NET apps on another platform you would have to virtually re-implement (or substitute) the entire Win32 API, which will probably be modified at an ever-increasing pace. No company can keep up -- only open source may be able to do that, but Microsoft's opinion might be that open source is no real threat for the platforms where they want to deploy .NET. (After all, even the average Slashdotter seems to think that Linux will never be ready for the desktop -- quite idiotic, IMHO, but the more people believe that, the better.)
Insofar Ximian's Mono project may be a good thing as it offers a migration path where previously none existed (from Windows to Linux), even if .NET apps don't run properly on Mono (think about all the GUI stuff that can go wrong, for example). Besides, Java has never really been a mature technology IMHO and it's about time to replace it with something better, even if superficially less cross-platform.
Now the advantages of having a modular architecture become clear. Mono cannot break Linux, it cannot break X, it can probably not even break GNOME. There are more alternatives than you can throw a kernel image at if something goes wrong. Let's just wait and see what the Mono guys come up with. The only people who should worry about this are Sun and their followers. And maybe RMS.
Dude, what's wrong with you? The rest of us are swimming in chicks, piles of cash and fast cars! You must be doing something wrong! As long as you follow the instruction book they send you when you start an open source project, all this can be yours. It outlines in clear steps exactly what you need to do to make your fortune using Open Source software, and it always works! Didn't you get yours yet?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
Nice call broody.
:+)
Happy?
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Think of the IL (the language the CLR runs) as an instruction set akin to a processor's native instruction set.. Obviously every language can be compiled to to run in assembler..
It may be more efficient to redesign the language to work with the underlying stuff, but I don't think it's a requirement..
- Steve
Miguel's arguments sound all well and good, but I think he is fundamentally naive about Microsoft.
.NET framework are still vague. Now, why might that be? The naive might think it's because Microsoft still haven't worked some of the details out. As has been stated many times before, Microsoft is betting the farm on .NET. Microsoft are a very competitive company, with one of the most lucrative monopolies in the world. Think about that. Imagine how Microsoft will respond if they start to loose market share, or control over developers, because of Mono.
.NET! That's because it's great technology and these days we're such nice people." But as soon as they feel it's a threat, well...
Microsoft have fought tooth and nail over many years to build their monopoly. They will do whatever it takes to protect that, within the boundries of what they can get away with these days.
Some parts of the
As long as Mono stays a little project (which it is as far as Microsoft is concerned) then they will play nice. They will be able to point to it and say "Hey, look, even the Open Source people are supporting
Don't be naive Miguel. You are implementing a copy of a system still under development the world's largest and most aggressive software monopoly. Think about that.
I particularly liked his comment about Linux coming from AT&T's non-free environment. He seems to imply that the .NET framework is to the future what AT&T UNIX is to the present.
> They have incorporated many ideas from Java, and they have extended it to address new needs that developers had. They took where Java left off.
ROFL. Well, there you have it! An endorsement for 'embrace and extend'. We all know about MS's attempts to do it with Java, so I guess thats what C# is. Java, embraced, extended. Kinda like when the CIA was caught doing something bad, they lopped off the bad department, christened it unaffiliated with the CIA, and thus, we have the NED. But I digress. Anyhow, I just found it interesting just how upfront and accepted this approach is now.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I have two things I would like to point out to you. Actually after preview it's alot of things.
.NET Framework stands on it's own feet, and developers in the Windows world love it....... We are witnessing the creating and deployment of a new standard...
So when you copy your binary from Windows that was compiled with the Visual Studio.NET and run it on your Unix platform, it will just integrate nicely with your GNOME desktop.
How exactly do you plan on doing that, as I'm aware of, at least right now. Microsoft hasn't submitted a full spec to the ECMA. Again; I will mention that Microsoft has never done something like this in the past; they've always blocked people out.
Your ideas on writing pieces of code in different languages is agreeable except in this case. Writing chunks of programs or pieces of code vital to the overall program in a different language which may or may not work to spec is just asking for trouble. (IE: using asm for sound routines etc etc many examples)
The
A standard that we will have to fight to operate with in the long run. Instead of unix camp supporting those ideals we should be supporting things like java or creating or own stuff. Just because windows developers love it doesn't mean it's not java with a couple of addons. If it was wildly different in any manner I would agree that we should be looking to use it; however this is not the case. A standard already exists and that standard is java
The only restriction is that all of our work has to be free software. But other than that, I am ready to take money from anyone or listen to any kind of proposals for making this happen
We all know nothing involving money comes without a price. Don't blind yourself to that. If someone gives you money, they want something. For Microsoft it'd be whatever it took to end the free software movement; period. Try not to be a pawn in their game, try not to play the game period.
Your comment that follows above italicized voids most of what you said earlier regarding inteoperability.
I sincerely think that you need to assess what your true goal is. This isn't nirvana, this isn't a place where you can walk into the middle of the street and not get hit by a car. This is a cruel world, I fear your intentions are good and your heart and mindset is in the right place but don't be fooled, Microsoft and others make this a very cruel industry. There are certain things that you can and can't do and currently they set the rules, this is what we are trying to break so that we don't have to worry about if a standard is submitted and we base our code on said standard that it will work across the board. Building upon their standards which do nothing to help that only helps them.
Thanks for your clarification it did clear up a couple of points though.
I believe Microsoft actually obtained a software patent on at least one of the password hashing algorithms used in NT. If Microsoft ever pursued enforcement of that patent, anything that generated hashed passwords for use in the Samba password file could be at risk.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
when this comes to its only possible conclusion: microsoft silently encourages this effort until lots of gnome folks understand how to write c# and write to the .net fwk apis - then they will crush mono/open source .net; they'll kill you with licensing and incompatibility; they'll take you to court and screw you silly.
.net fwk class libraries - what do you think those folks will do? learn something else, or put those skills to work - often for money - on windows.
and then you'll have a huge group of people that like coding c# using the
and i will laugh my ass off at you idiots.
1) I thought Miguel's arguments for why he's getting behind the .NET Framework(the CLI and CLR to be specific) were excellent. I have read much about the Mono project since the announcement of its inception, but this is by far the best explication I have seen. If he hasn't made me a believer, he has at least made me very curious.
.NET to me seem like the obvious directions(licensing as a standard to ECMA, support for multiple languages, etc.) that Java should be going towards, but, for whatever reason, is not. I think .NET(and Mono) if they pick up steam will give sun the kick in the ass they need to get moving on some of this stuff that they are not.
2) As an active Java developer, I think that this may very well be the BEST thing someone could do to help Java. The directions Microsoft are going in with
I personally think the main reason Sun has not further opened Java up is because they have not perceived the need to. They are doing some calculus in their head to make it as open as they need to gain developers from Redmond, but still try to hold onto as much as possible of it for themselves.
3) My largest concern with this, and I didn't notice Miguel addressing it there or in the followups, is the patent issue. My worst fear is everything would go incredibly well with mono: diverse compilers, robust libraries, etc. and we would all start to build code around it, and then about 5 years down the line Microsoft whips out a patent and demands royalties for all the labor that we have done under the illusion that it would be free.
I would love to see Miguel address this concern. I cannot speak for others, but I would be a long way to considering getting involved with Mono(whether it mean using their tools to develop, or even contributing to the developmen of libraries, languages, etc.) if I felt better about these things.
Sorry, even though Miguel does a good job of going into an indepth "answer", Alan Cox takes all the air out of the sail.
Java is NOT broken or lacking because it is inferior. If it is lacking anything, it is because no one has gone the one step further and fixed it. Do THAT instead of rebuilding from M$-poopie.
Finally, the simple statement by Alan that as soon as M$ decides they're a pain in the ass, poof, there goes the VM into patented special-feature land (see kerberos for a similar f*ckjob) and no .NET viralware will run via mono. Add this to the FACT that the predominant C# compiler in use will be the M$ version. De facto factamundo. The M$ version will be "special" while the free variants will be broken. Just like the PROPER implementation of java (non-M$) was "broken" with respect to the illegal perversions that M$ inflicted on it (and thus we have C#).
M$ is not changing its tune on whit. This is NOT a gift to the developer community. It is NOTHING but a means of continuing lockin (and conversely, lockout) and moola into Gates pocket. Nothing more, nothing less. It may be a nice way to build stuff at some future time for linux but it is NOT a means of being able to run some .NET windoze binary on linux (never happen except accidentally because the code was simple enough not to include "broken" M$-only freakishness). You will find that most of the important stuff will not run. Developers will STILL not make linux-friendly stuff because the bulk of the market is in M$-doze-land and they can run the broken/perverted .NET M$_VM-only stuff.
Stone cold fact. Sing the praises of mono for having the POTENTIAL of providing a nice development environment for linux coders (though unnecessary if they'd instead focus on the correct path of Java) but don't delude yourselves that this will mean windoze binaries working on linux.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Read the explanation. That's covered. They're implementing the ECMA spec and adding seemless access to GNOME. If there's compatibility with Microsoft's implementation, that's nice since portability is free. If Microsoft deviates from the standard, it's a shame Mono is still has merit, especially language independence which was always important to GNOME. Essentially, Mono is cherry-picking features from .NET.
Okay, you're asking, why not use Java's JVM since it supports multiple languages. As someone pointed out in the gnome lists, Java, like TCL, is Turing complete so it can support any language your CPU can. Suppose you tried to implement Java in TCL? Would you be pleased with the performance? Probably not. Java's JVM lacks several features that make running languages like C++/C, Lisp, and Haskell fast, including:
The .NET's CLR gives you these features. If Java's JVM were open source, the Mono team could easily extend the JVM to support these features. It would certainly make life a lot easier. Unfortunately, if they did, Mono would get little commercial support, and they'd receive a call from Sun's legal department. I personally hope .NET and Mono force Sun to do the right thing and extend the JVM to efficiently support other languages.
Java is nice, but the take it or leave attitude of Java is the reason .NET was not laughed out of existence.
Miguel de Icaza has committed two sins against the "spirit" of "free" software:
As I understand it, Miguel is looking at the CLR part of .NET as a productivity tool; he believes that Ximian developers will create applications faster and more reliably using a clone of Microsoft's technology. And he is very valid in pointing out that cloning .NET will follow a long tradition of "freeing" proprietary technologies. If GNU can clone C, C++, Java, Word, and what-not, why complain about cloning the .NET CLR and C#?
Miguel is not forcing anything on anyone; Gnome and GNU will not be dependent on Mono, and Mono only imposes on those who wish to use it. So long as Miguel protects existing free code from proprietary contamination, I see nothing wrong with what he's doing.
As to whether he can succeed -- well, I think he's bitten off more than Ximian can chew, in that implementing certain pieces of the .NET CLR and VM is unlikely to attract hordes of Windows-based developers, nor is it going to offer the functionality that will allow cross-platform development. Perhaps the only "evil" involved here is that Miguel's efforts may legitimize Microsoft's monopoly as a false example of the "openness" the monster of Redmond. We'll need to keep an eye on that.
In the end, Mono will sink or swim based on its merits; if developers don't like Mono, they won't develop for it, and it will go the way of the dodo. On the other hand, if Mono works, it could be a Very Good Thing by making application development easier for Linux. Time will tell.
All about me
From the statement:
:)
:)
The CIL has one feature not found in Java though: it is byte code representation that is powerful enough to be used as a target for many languages: from C++, C, Fortran and Eiffel to Lisp and Haskell including things like Java, C#, JavaScript and Visual Basic in the mix.
Let's forget for a minute what the source of this new byte code language, or standard, is. If it truly delivers the above, that would be quite an accomplishment, and probably a good thing. Remember I said, forget about the source for a moment...
What I wonder is, how does for example parrot measure up against that? Parrot seems to be moving quite slowly, but I might be mistaken since I am not involved. Since it apparently is the new engine for perl 6, I'd say it must have something going behind it.
Anyhow, one of the things with parrot is at least said to be the possibility to compile a lot of other languages besides perl, such as python or java into parrot byte code - something that indeed would be a good thing for portability and the ease of running a little of whatever on any platform. I am not sure how deep these plans actually go, and how feasible it really is.
But parrot is where I would like to set my hopes, so can anyone tell me - do I wait in vain? Is CIL really the way to go? Or are we, in reality, simply stuck with different compilers and/or interpreters for different languages?
You betray a very limited understanding of the problem. The CLR (like the JVM) makes a number of assumptions about the nature of programs running upon it that a CPU can never make--things like the way stack frames are created, exceptions are propagated, methods are dispatched. If the language is not designed with the same assumptions, it can not run on the CLR (of course, if you are going to give up all efficiency, you could write another VM in C# and target the lanugage at that). All the languages that the CLR supports--even MS languages like VB--have been re-designed to work with the CLR.
Let's face it. As much as we may not like it, the majority of the computing world uses some flavor of Microsoft Windows as a desktop computing environment. Now, we can argue about this from many different perspectives.
(My personal opinion is that Microsoft is not necessarily evil on account of this. To be honest, Windows is actually relatively useful -and useful is what companies require to survive. Rather, Microsoft is evil simply for what they are charging for their software. Sure, they can charge companies whatever they like (I don't care). However, the common man for his home computer should not be charged hundreds of dollars for an operating system and office software. That is truely the real evil of Microsoft and the Microsoft monopoly.)
Anyways, back to my point. Miguel is right because, like it or not, Windows is a reality that we have to coexist with. We can view this as contending or perhaps cooperating. Whatever the case, it is here and that is that.
Well, as Miguel said, Windows is here and that means that
Now, if Microsoft had done a terrible job with
Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense for us to do our own thing. Especially considering the benefits that we will recieve due to actually getting along a little bit better.
Back to my prediction. I think that the computer world is heading toward a point where specific desktop platform is a non-issue. People thinking about the short term will fret about XP this, or Gnome that. However, something like
The journey to a non-platform-centric desktop world will have many parts. One of these will be the arrival of other competitors on the scene. That is hear, with wonderful options such as Linux/Gnome (foo on KDE) and Mac OS X. Ok, KDE can play too if they manage to provide things like
Other pieces of the puzzle are things that allow applications to be used from these multiple platforms. Well, suprise but some of these are already here. They best example to this is the internet. Other examples include emerging technologies such as the
Anyways, once again, just my two cents. For what it's worth, I hope someone gets something from it.
(Go Miguel, go. Go Miguel, go!)
People like me stuck with GNOME (I can remember a disasterous attempt to use way not ready for prime time 1.0 release on a college campus) because we believed in the GNU approach that GNOME was taking. Now that Mr. de Icaza is working at a high paid job, apparently none of this matters anymore, he has come to embrace the "whatever gets it done" mindset.
But would some one explain to me how a complete reverse engineering of a MicroSoft compiler and all the other bits and pieces of .Net is possibly "getting more done in less time." Not to meantion what is going to happen when MicroSoft says "no you can't do that" and sets out to put and end to it, and I think from the thier track record you can count on it. The only reason they haven't done so yet is that none of this has become a "standard" yet and Miguel seems perfectly content with helping them make it a "standard".
The notion that we should roll over and accept the fact of a .Net world flies in the face of everything the GNOME project asserted from the very beginning. They told us that we didn't have to accept proprietary standards, we could make our own. Now we are being told that it is OK to accept a "standard" that just happens to come from a proprietary company, in this case the worst of them, MicroSoft, because "I like it better" and "it will help me make stuff faster".
Well this is all just absurd. No matter how calmly he tries to assure us that everything will be OK, I think that anyone that hasn't been living in a cave knows what getting into bed in any way with MicroSoft will end up doing to you. You pick up a snake, you are going to be bitten. The only possible reason I could see for wanting to do this is for Ximian to slip in some non-free parts of Mono they want you buy (but it's OK cause it is just to connect to all the .Net stuff you already have from MicroSoft) the same way they did with evolution.
Um, RMS basicaly said "That don't sound like something miguel would say. I would be suprized if it was true."
How is that "Flying off the handle"? (not that he dosn't).
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
ECMA spec be damned. It is incomplete and will remain so. The key things that WONT be in it, that is a CERTAINTY, will be M$-only. You want to get their benefit and run your code PROPERLY on computers? Ah, well you'll need the M$-C# compiler and the M$-VM. Anything else will fall short and just not cut it. Again, see kerberos, samba, etc, etc, for what to REALLY expect. M$ has not magically changed one iota. Not. One. Bit.
They will NEVER fully release to the ECMA the full spec. They will hold key parts back for their own use ONLY and with others, well, you can pay to license it if you want. Cost you a pretty penny but there you have it.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Miguel, in an otherwise well thought out and well constructed rebuttal to TSH (Typical Stallman Hype), makes one comment I take great exception to...something to the effect of "CIL is Microsoft picking up where Java left off."
.NET like it's a great new IDEA.
.NET allows you to compile ASP code." JSP. "Tighter integration with IIS allows you to better utilize ISAPI." Servlets. "Serialization and persistance." EJB.
Excuse me, when the hell did Sun Microsystems "leave off"? Version 1.4 is coming out the door at any time, with such nice features as buffers and extensive regular expression support, and all of a sudden they've "left off"? Java will run on nearly every system ever created and in all sorts of unusual situations and suddenly Sun dropped the ball?
Look, Java is effing huge. People do write applications in it, and I'm not talking about ticker applets. Today's machines can run Sun's graphics engine as well as they can run GTK, and it's available underneath any OS. Any "work" that Microsoft is doing on the CIL has already been done by Sun, with the exception that MS' byte code executes faster and has better UI support.
But is there any wonder? An implementation of the CIL requires a lot of work on the part of the window management driver authors, meaning there's plenty of room for tuning. An implementation of Swing requires very little -- implement a fiew basic AWT classes and Swing, which is "100% Pure Java," will work atop the older class. Meaning that there has to be a lot more abstract code in Java. Meaning you can be damn sure your application looks the same everywhere and there won't be any glitches due to "factionalied" implementations.
Of course, most of the development world is still coping with the idea that different platforms require different code (hence the laundry lists inside Makefiles). The Java paradigm won't let you do that. It says, "write that shit once and deal with the slow down, it shouldn't be a dealbreaker for cross platform code." It shouldn't be. But it is. Many development houses can't get over this. Hell, I mentioned to our IT guy that I was doing our mailserver in java and he thought I meant an applet, scoffing "Write once, run nowhere."
CIL is an attempt to get under the skin of this, but it's a flawed attempt. Jesus, all the development time and heartache going into the optimization of x-platform windowing "frameworks" and "toolkits" where there already is one seems headstrong. Actually, it seems idiotic, and it's why I seethe whenever I hear somebody drop
"But C sharp has improved garabage collection, language integration and runs anywhere." Yeah, that's Java for you. "But
Jesus, why isn't Sun mopping the floor with these idiots???
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Isn't .Net different though, in that there are system libraries to worry about? I don't claim to be an expert here, I'm just going from what I have read and heard, but let's look at some crossplatform examples:
Java - you have a VM and a standard API that are with you wherever you go. Your API is limited, but you run anywhere. Life in a box!
Qt - you have an API that operates on all supported platforms. Each platform requires a separate build. The upside is you can link with native system libraries just like any normal program, and do specifics with win32, X, Carbon, etc.
.Net - a hybrid of the above. Your foundation is a VM, but you rely on libraries that exist outside of the box. Because the necessary libs may not be present on all platforms, your program may not be available everywhere (just like Qt).
.Net sounds like a nice solution to binary-compatibility though.
You want the long and short reason Miguel is so hot on .NET? Market share for Ximian apps, period. The technology will let Ximian write apps that they can sell to both the Linux and Windows markets. Pretty transparnt, really.
.technomancer
Nah Not back to the drawing board, just back to Java where what Miguel wants is actuallly possible (the fantasy part, that is, of little binaries playing equally well on all computer playgrounds). The .NET binary crap running on linux is sheer, unadulterated, feces. I'm suprized he (Miguel) can stand the smell of all that feces gushing out his bunghole/cakehole. Frickin' delusional twit.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Craig: "But look: we're a business, okay? We're in the business of licensing intellectual property. So if it turns out that in the future that business says, "Okay, we should license the patents to people who use that in order to be compensated for the development of intellectual property," maybe we'll do that. You're always welcome to come and ask us to license anything from sources to patents. But I mean, we are a business. We're not --
...
Craig: Well, at the end of the day, if you have a patent, you enforce the patent if it's valuable to you. And so I think that Microsoft and other people who have patents will ultimately decide to enforce those patents.
Brian: Are there any patents that apply or that will apply to implementers of .Net or Hailstorm?
Craig: I expect there certainly will be. I mean, the patent process takes a long time.
Specifically, in what way are the Java bytecodes and VM "a bit more paranoid about things like security"? I've looked at both the specs and I don't see how this argument can be supported, but I'd seriously like to learn.
I spoke in ignorance, based on a belief that .NET supporters were serious when they were talking about the ability to run C, etc., in CLR. From looking at Microsoft's security overview, it does appear that they have things locked down pretty tight for the CLR's managed code execution.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough details there, and I was not able to find a good link to more details that would cover things like arbitrary memory access within a specific assembly, etc. Given the frequency of pointer passing in C based API's, though, I can't believe that any C code running in CLR would have much intra-assembly security.
So, it looks as though the CLR, when running managed code, at least looks as though it is on a similar footing to Java's security specs. The proof will be to see how much code winds up running within the managed CLR and how much winds up going unmanaged.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
I liked the comparison of technologies, but it misses a main point. Or rather, I believe its primary audience misses a main point.
.NET and the JVM may be limited, let's not loose track of the fact that extern "C" {} and its ilk are far more limited. Instead of limiting languages to objects without templates and continuations, the current scheme of exporting function symbols and structs is downright embarrasing.
.NET as a library/component interface and leave each language relatively intact. For example, implement your library/component in the language of choice, but export the functionality (what is currently "handled" by library symbols) in a language-neutral but far more feature-rich manner.
.NET is not perfect. The JVM is not perfect. But I strongly believe that they are a step in the right direction. For example, the current choice(?) on UNIX systems is to have C-compatible exports for libraries.
While
What would be really nice is using
Doesn't "Managed C++" allow for advanced C++ features that simply are not exported for use outside the codeblock? C# has "unsafe" blocks for its own bit-twiddling.
We're on the right track here. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater!
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Miguel's experience with .Net seems to mirror my own. It's a very productive environment that's a blast to work in.
.Net on Windows, then having to do some work in any current GUI app dev system on Linux.
.Net, let him prove it, but don't suggest that we have to learn to live with less for political reasons.
Have you ever gotten used to working in a Unix/Linux shell then had to jump over to Windows and do something on the command line in *DOS*? Know what that feels like, that helpless feeling of losing all your magical powers?
That's what it feels like to work in
If RMS thinks he or his minions can design a better architecture than
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Miguel is navigating dangerous waters that have wrecked other ships befoe him but he thinks himself a better captain. I have news for him: they were better than he thinks. As I see it, all of Miguel's arguments are sound and lull one into actually wanting to believe lions will lie down with lambs. Who can fault peace, love, and understanding after all? However, the real problem is not his logic but an underlying naieve assumption: that Microsoft has changed and will allow .Net to be cross platform when deployment volume becomes significant. When .Net starts to gain significant market share, they will do what they always do, add patent-protected feature that kills the cross-platform nature of their framework. It is in fact it is a deviously clever strategy--worthy of a Borgia Prince coached by Machiavelli himself. Give hope and encouragement to a large component of the open source developers which are givng Microsoft heartburn and let them devote an ever larger slice of their creative bandwidth and energy both feuding internally and developing to adopt .Net. Encourage them to do it--even help them walk deep into it and tie all their code to it inextricably. Allow .Net to change their architecture, setting the hook deeper. Then after the distraction has divided the open source community long enough and defocused Gnome, Mono and ensnared other open source projects, drop in a patented-feature that kills its cross-platform nature. They did it with Kerberos, then Samba, and lately NetApp using CIFS. I have absolutely no doubt they have not had a change of heart of strategy and will do it to Mono/.Net. It is only a matter of time. Voila--Victory Microsoft style. Miguel and Mono will be roadkill.
Miguel's argument can be boiled down to this: (1) writing big applications sucks because complexity grows geometrically with each line of code, and (2) integrating code written in different languages sucks because complexity grows geometrically with each line of code in either language. Basically, Miguel is fighting the same fight that every software engineer has faced since the beginning of time. Complexity grows much faster than anyone can handle, and as soon as you let heterogeneity into the equation, you're basically screwed.
The only problem that a CLR supposedly solves is the maintanence of the bindings. Instead of binding Gtk to perl and python and ada and C and C++, etc., you bind it in a library in the CLR. Except that to access that new CLR binding, you need to have perl and python and ada and C and C++ compilers that target the CLR, which is certainly a more glamorous job than maintaining bindings for every language under the sun, but is *WAY MORE* complex.
Basically, the CLR is middleware for the desktop. It does nothing to decrease the complexity of the system, it just shifts some of the complexity to another software engineer. Applications get easier to write, but new compilers need to be written and maintained.
When Microsoft's writing the compilers and you're shelling out the cash, you're only responsible for your piece of it - the application. Obviously this is good for you. But the free software community is responsible for all of it, from compilers to run times, to new bindings, to applications. *We* have to do it all. I wonder if Ximian will really benefit from dispatching software engineers to work on Mono when they could be working on the applications. Companies that buy stuff from Microsoft don't have to send software engineers to work on Mono, but free software projects will "lose" engineers because they'll have to work on Mono, not their respective projects.
The challege that software engineers face in the future is constructing systems that actually reduce the complexity of applications, rather than just shift the complexity elsewhere.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, its too dark to read.
You need a shirt like this to remind the ladies that they find hackers irrestable. Women constantly say to me, "You know I do dig Unix... wanna go out?"
Sun does charge fees for J2EE. What made you think otherwise? What makes you think Microsoft couldn't charge huge fees for Windows XP server? (Oh yeah they do...)
Remember - it was Sun that renegged on ISO and EMCA standardization - not Microsoft.
Right, except it wasn't "not Microsoft" it was "because of Microsoft".
Sun has always stated it won't opposed clones (including open source clones) of Java, as long as they aren't called "Java". Microsoft's Java escapades were completely different - it licensed Java from Sun then proceeded to release "embrace and extend" enhancements.
Sun's "Java Community Process" is a complete sham and everybody knows it. Sun's vote is the only one that matters.
This ignorant statement simply shows that you have no clue about the JCP. Do a little research.
Why are you posting anonymously anyhow...? ;-)
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
The Scorpion and the Fox
A Retelling of an Ancient Middle Eastern Tale of Two Enemy Countries
by Ms. Holly
Once long ago in the vast lands of the desert there was a great and vast river that had to be crossed for animals to seek food and water elsewhere in the desert. As it was on this day Fox had come to the point where it had to cross the river in its travels. As it stood contemplating the best way to cross the river safely Fox's life long enemy Scorpion came upon it and began to talk to Fox.
"Fox as I was walking along the river bank looking for food I noticed a particularily easy place to cross the river where the water is not so deep and not so swift. As it is I would like to cross over myself also but as I am so small it would be impossible. Would you be willing to take me across if I show you this place to cross the river?" asked Scorpion.
"Why should I take you across? How could I possibly trust you will not sting me on the way across as we have been life long enemies?" asked Fox.
"Why would I sting you? For if I stung you it would mean you would drown then both of us would die." replied Scorpion.
Fox thought this over for a bit while carefully watching Scorpion with a distrustful eye. Eventually Fox said, "Show me where the place is and I will take you across."
"First place me on your back and then I will show you. For otherwise you may jump in and leave me behind once I show you." replied Scorpion.
Fox thought this over for a bit while carefully watching Scorpion with a distrustful eye. Then walked over to Scorpion and allowed him to climb onto its back. Scorpion directed Fox to where the river was not so deep nor so swift such that it was a safer place to cross over. As Fox was swimming across the river and had reached the middle of the river Fox felt a sharp stinging sensation on its back and realized it had been stung by Scorpion. Fox cried out, "How could you sting me we shall both drown now?"
Scorpion replied, "It is better we should both perish than that my enemy should live."
Can't think of clever sig so had to settle for this! Damit it Jim I am a programm not a sig writer.
Has Sun sued Apple over Cocoa written in Java? Has Sun sued any of the large number of companies that have implemented a native compiler for Java?
The lawsuit was specifically over JNI and RMI. Sun had no problems with strict supersets of the Java language (COM integration for example). However the native interface was replaced with RNI(?) and RMI was simply ommitted.
This means that if people coded to the spec for native integration with portable C, it wouldn't work from one target to the next. And in the case of RMI, MS simply didn't want a competitor to DCOM within DevStudio. RMI is a big deal. On a "pure" Java platform, RMI was how distributed computing was done. You take that away and suddenly you're right back with C and C++ and their myriad of options for distributed programming but lack of any consistent single API that you can use anywhere.
You'll note that MS whined that RMI was just too time consuming to be bothered with. Then after the judgement, an RMI implementation was produced in less than a month!
THIS is the reason Sun has not submitted Java to a standards body. If Java is messed with, Sun would have no legal recourse while suffering significant liabilities in keeping Java's APIs consistent. Add that to the fact that no standards body has sufficient clout to do more than look at Microsoft (or anyone else) sternly.
Do I trust Sun completely. Of course not. It is a large, public company with all of the benefits and drawbacks of a large, public company. But I trust them *enough* (with their current track record) to keep Java relatively clean and consistent -- especially in light of folks like IBM making compatible and very fast JVM implementations.
Sun isn't as closed off as people would suggest. The Java API for XML Parsing was heavily influenced from outside contributors -- especially the 1.1 version with TRAX.
Where are the cross-platform, standard C and C++ libraries for networking, threading, graphics, distributed programming, database access, XML parsing, object serialization, directory (LDAP, X.500, etc.) lookup, authorization, authentication, i18n and l10n? I'll tell you where: in the standards bodies who cannot enforce what people use nor can they do anything about people who ignore the spec.
Where would Java be if it were submitted to ISO five years ago? Right where C++ is today with Microsoft providing the only viable development platform. Woohoo.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
What i like about this, is that in the future it could well mean that i could use my windows application in linux, NOT via wine, simply because they are .NET based. This would save alot of hassle for me, because Windows crashes at a pathetically high rate, yet I have to use it!
.NET (although, it wouldn't make much sense to most developer why they should) we'd get automatic cross-platform games...something most hard-core gamers would just love!
Then,games...should games ever begin to use
Bad thing: should Microsoft ever decide they don't like Mono...well the API will somehow become so that Mono can't reimplement it.
Derek Greene
Like a lot of people, when I first read that GNOME was going to embrace a Microsoft technology, I was outraged.
The more I read, however, the more it makes sense. If the bytecode is truly portable this could produce an explosion of industrial quality programs that will run on Linux. This could potentially remove one barrier that is slowing Linux's growth as a viable mainstream desktop operating system. One has got to wonder what Microsoft's strategy is to thwart this.
So, I think we should proceed and implement Mono while keeping one eye open for that giant tube of Microsoft Vaseline.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
First, let me say that I use Gnome for my desktop and have used GTK+ for sizable projects. I've even developed smaller GNOME applications and found the various API's horrible. I can't stress enough that I'm not trying to cook someone here for the sake of cooking. I think the only point he makes here is that GNOME is without a solid technology direction and has suffered dearly for it for a very long time. In fact, he as much as points this out. So, call me a troll if you like but I fail to see how Mono isn't anything other than a new tech headline. Please read below if you care to follow his assumptions while he explains pretty much nothing.
The CIL and the promise of language independence
This is what CORBA promised more or less. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Gnome start out using CORBA and decided that it needed different technologies later in the cycle?
Are there not already language bindings for C, C++, Python, Perl and I'm sure several others? So tell me again why we need an interpretted wanna-be CORBA in the mix?
This technology allows programming languages to be considered on the basis of how they will perform for a given task, and not based on the runtime libraries that you will depend. Any software engineer should read this article:
Generally speaking, good engineers already do this. The choice of yet another tool somehow doesn't make this happen, though, choice can be a good thing. Adding a slow runtime is not going to make the awesomely optimized FORTAN libs suddenly appear and become compatible with various CIL implementations. In fact, really all you can say is that when you use this technology [CIL implementations], the language of choice will no longer effect performance rather it will be forced back onto the developers to optimize for a given language; that is, language specific CIL tuning tricks. On the other hand, all of the languages which use this are going to have a negative performance impact so it sounds like programmers will have even more choice (seemingly pointless). Let's see, I can pick C or C++ for performance or I can pick C/C++/C# [CIL implementations] which performs an order of magnitude slower. Hmmm. Hard choice. Tell me again why I should care about CIL, Mono and C#??
GNOME had always tried to have a good support for multiple programming languages.
No it hasn't. Save only for the CORBA efforts, GNOME is very C biased. One of the common complaints coming from the C++ KDE camp. The more correct statement would be, "multiple programming languages have always tried to support GNOME." These efforts have inflicted various levels of pain on their bindings implementors.
They have incorporated many ideas from Java, and they have extended it to address new needs that developers had. They took where Java left off.
What does that mean? Sounds like they are re-implementing Java. Why? Why don't you just further improve Java. I'll make it known here, I've never beena Java fan but this just doesn't make sense to me. It only makes sense to Microsoft because they badly need to de-crown Java. Aside from Microsoft, I don't see how this helps anyone. By the way, what are these "new needs that developers had", that existing technologies can't address? Do we really have to move to a VM to address these needs?? Somehow this seems like we're taking several steps backward. Anyone?
Libraries have been built by disconnected groups (PNG, JPEG, Gtk+, Xml, Bonobo, CORBA spec apis, etc) and the end result is that a developer eventually has to learn more than he wanted to in the course of developing a large application.
Might this have more to do with the fact that GNOME has been wondering without direction for a very long time and no one in the GNOME camp has been willing to settle and agree on a single API nor the technology behind these APIs? Does it have to be the programmer's fault? Can't it be that the API's provided have just sucked? Can't it be that the API's have changed so fast and often that programmers wonder what they are doing trying to implement a large application via GNOME? Can't this mean that the implementations behind the API's have been less than wonderful and seemingly change daily? Does it have to be because programmers don't want to learn? Seems to me, if programmers didn't want to learn, they wouldn't be trying to develope large applications in a highly dynamic environment (from an API perspective). Wouldn't a static API help address this? Won't simply adding yet another API compound this issue even further?
There is a point in your life when you realize that you have written enough destructors, and have spent enough time tracking down a memory leak, and you have spend enough time tracking down memory corruption, and you have spent enough time using low-level insecure functions, and you have implemented way too many linked lists [1]
Doesn't this really reflect the choice of underpinning APIs and implementations behind the APIs as much as the language. It's funny, I've developed very large applications (C/C++) before and never had nearly as many issues as one does when trying to use the GNOME/GTK technologies. Might it be that you've been chasing the wrong end of the technology spectrum? Might it be that you should of been looking to replace GTK and the billion other obtuse libraries that are the foundation of GNOME with better, faster, stronger technologies? Might is be that the number of memory leaks and associated debugging issues have something to do with design skills and/or coding habits? In not in whole, in part? Some part? Maybe a little? If you have even a small problem which is compounded over and over in various suite of libs that is GNOME, might this actually result in a large problem manifesting it self as obtuse APIs which lend them self to these issues?
Evolution took us two years to develop and at its peak had 17 engineers working on the project. I want to be able to deliver four times as many free software applications with the same resources, and I believe that this is achievable with these new technologies.
Wow! This really is magic technology1 It's going to 4x the level of productivity over any other tool, toolkit, and language. Wow! Does it come with a bridge too? I can't wait.
Even C++ was invented at ATT.
Yes, you're right, however, it was written by people who wanted to look at solving real problems with a different approach while leveraging the large C programmer base. It was need driven. The same can not be said for C# and CIL. Both of these are being driven my Microsoft to side step Sun and Java. The motive is as important as anything else, especially when we are talking about Microsoft. If, according to you, it's pretty much Java with some icing, why not go the shortest and best path for everyone and help improve Java? Go ahead, make the icing for Java. Then, you'll have everything you're asking for with a whole lot less effort and TONS more people will be rewarded for your efforts.
Windows developers know how to write code for it.
Do they? Windows developers are going to be coding to GTK's and GNOME's interfaces? That's news to me. As far as I know, what this really means is that Windows C# programmers will be able to code C# on unix. Last I heard, Windows C and C++ programmers already know how to code C and C++ on unix. Please, tell me again where this magic bean grows from...
Lets make it easy to bring developers from the Windows world into our platform.
I must of fallen to sleep or something because I don't see how this has suddenly changed. Anyone?
Training materials, tutorials, documentation, tips and tricks are already available in large quantities, lets leverage this.
I seriously question this. Seems to me, that would be true as long as the programmer is really using C# and the underlying CIL implementation is the same. But, you're telling me that you're developing your own CIL and your own C# implementation so I doubt this will be true any more than it is today for any other given language and platform combination. More magic beans. Mmmm....I smell fresh brew magic coming my way...
Sorry folks, I've gone on long enough...I'm simply tired of typing. Obviously I don't see anything that he's stating other than there's a whole bunch of magic in this technology that no one has ever seen before. Furthermore, I think he helps make a wonderful argument that GNOME needs someone else at the helm. And if he's saying that he's not at the helm (I think he tried to say that too), then GNOME very badly needs someone which is not him.
Greg
Now that same argument, applied to de Icaza applies perfectly. Mono is not going to be "bound" in any way to GNOME, that much is fact. So the core product itself remains free. But more importantly, Miguel has to answer to a board of directors, whereas Linus can do (or not do) whatever he wants. They provide funding. They call the shots. They agreed to Ximian funding of Mono. How is anyone (especially RMS) entitled to an opinion here?
Regardless of RMS's embrace and extend FUD about everything being GNU (I bet very few people see it that way, but if it quacks like a duck...), he has absolutely no say about anything Miguel does, period. His argument of "Miguel better answer to the community" can be cleanly compiled to "explain this shit to me, boy".
Oh, and BTW, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this small detail: RMS was turned down from the GNOME board of directors in November of last year. From the precedent of previous flame wars between RMS and various other people, who can say this is not simply his way of giving GNOME a bad time?
And finally, let's face it: Anything that has a relationship (remote as it may be) with Microsoft is immediately turned into an argument about "giving into the dark side" and "fight against the evil empire". That sure gives way to very constructive discussion. Most of the posts here have either tried to denounce Miguel as a traitor or simply nit-picked his reasons for doing what he's doing. Very nice.
And to Miguel: Dile a RMS que encamine sus pasos a la progenitora de sus dias y la salude de tu parte =)
Go ahead and mod me down now.
The patent issue could be a problem, but there are a few things to lessen the worry:
1)Mono is being conservative and only trying to implement things that are already in existence. See this quotation: "We are trying to stay on the safe side regarding patents. That means that we implement things in a way that has been used in the past and we are not doing tremendously elaborate or efficient things in Mono yet. We are still very far from that. But just using existing technologies and techniques." from MSDN.
2) You say: "My worst fear is everything would go incredibly well with mono: diverse compilers, robust libraries, etc. and we would all start to build code around it, and then about 5 years down the line Microsoft whips out a patent and demands royalties for all the labor that we have done under the illusion that it would be free." It is unlikely that a surprise patent is going to bite you 5 years down the line. It is true that until a patent application is finally accepted or rejected, the patent claims are secret. See 35 U.S.C.A. sec. 122(a). However, this period of secrecy is fairly short. MS submitted the API specs to the ECMA at least a year ago. Those specs are what the Mono libraries are being built on. Those specs will likely be described as "described in a printed publication." If MS wants to patent any of the API's, it has only 1 year in which to do so. See 35 U.S.C.A. sec. 102(b). Otherwise, there is a statutory bar on patentability, and the specs are in the public domain. See id. If MS has applied for those patents by now, there is a maximum 3-year time span for those claims to be reviewed and accepted or rejected by the PTO. See 35 U.S.C.A. sec. 154(b)(1)(B). Generally, however, MS would have to prosecute its patent within 6 months of the filing date. See 35 U.S.C.A. sec. 133. Therefore, "secret" patents are likely to be in hiding for less than 3 years.
I hope this allays some of your fears. Cheers!
P.S. IANAL (but I hope to be one some day), and anyone construing what I have said here as legal advice to their specific situation is an idiot.
~~~~~~~~~
dissertus scribendo latine videri volo.
Oh...and they're SO well published aren't they? Yeah, M$ is going to give the whole hog to ECMA. There wont be any hidden strings anywhere that ONLY works (and is only useful) on windoze.
A nice generic development environment, maybe. A means to run M$ binaries on linux? Never ever ever. NEVER.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Miguel says: So when you copy your binary from Windows that was compiled with the Visual Studio.NET and run it on your Unix platform, it will just integrate nicely with your GNOME desktop.
.NET CLI integration with KDE?
Hmmmm, I wonder what the KDE people would have to say about that. Is there any talk on the KDE mailing lists about
Lots of insightful comments, but no one's actually picked out the yawning chasm of a non sequitur in the Mono programme:
If you like some of the Dotnet features, you have to clone the Dotnet Framework
I might like my mother, but I'm not about to clone her so I'll someone to marry in a few years - I know that her virtues can be found in other forms.
For example, we could develop a new CIL that was based on Scheme, but which could support programs originally written in Java syntax. This might be a better language superset - certainly many early LISP developers intended it to be an intermediate language, so the parens were always optional in essence.
Consequently, the only possible justification for cloning the Dotnet Framework is that MS tools will facilitate development of Mono apps, and that (equivalently) Dotnet apps will port to Mono. And on this point, it seems the crowd has spoken with one voice - it just ain't gonna happen.
lynx_user_abroad wrote:
can someone explain to me why I keep running into Java apps that crash horribly on my Macintosh?
It's because you're using lynx.
I never said the work RMS was doing is bad, I said he's firey and has a tendancy to kneejerk. Demanding a response before investigating Miguel's comments is pompus.
Mods: Please moderate my comments to is not one with the hive mind (-1) from now on instead of veiling them in stuff like "redundant", thanks.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
I'm sorry, but it needs to be said, what is the story with these stack based virtual machines? Isn't a stack based virtual machine a dipology of good sense? I mean really, who actually sat down and thought "yes, you know, it's a good idea to binary translate from a language that is significantly different (stack based) from the target language (register based), and, to do it at run time". What's the sense here? Exactly, what is it? As I sit through my 20 minute install of random piece of java software I have to wonder, couldn't it be compiling those bytecodes to something native right now? Like, even if it still did the groovy runtime optimisations, it could save itself a whole shitload of trouble it was to precompile it. As for the whole signed/unsigned duality, yes, I hit that in a major way as I tried to write my JVM backend for GCC. Try compiling any normal C program without unsigned types, go on. Then there's the lack of unstructured memory, object store, etc, etc. I'd like to see a C compiler for .NET that doesn't suck ass -- I hereby claim it cant be done. When you embrace .NET (or for that matter Java) you are killing native code compilation and, more importantly, you are killing C. Some people might like that but I happen to love the C language (well, not the C99 extensions, but hey).
How we know is more important than what we know.
One point Miguel made really made me sit up and take notice. He pointed out that all of Gnu started out as Richard Stallman's attempt to make a free copy of a proprietary system, and Mono is just another attempt to do that same. I'd never thought of it that way, but he's right; it is very hard to remember in this day and age that 20 years ago, AT&T and company were really a lot like Microsoft as far as their treatment of end users, so why was it good for Stallman to propogate the then-evil-and-proprietary Unix interface and bad for De Icaza to propogate the .NET interface?
I forgot to add this to my posting:
DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS!
(Slashdot forced me to put more text than the three words, lame)
I am not exactly, totally enthusiastic about this idea of being able to use ANY language for a given programming project or combination thereof.
.Net architecture with a CLI as envisioned by Microsoft should produce software with unessacarily high engineering requirements than a single language platform.
.Net MONO vision for a Linux app would quite possible require COBOL, C, Java, PERL, FORTRAN etc programmers to cooperate in building a new desktop app or feature.
I have these reasons, personally, as a matter of observation in the software engineering of large complicated systems.
But I would like to make some observations:
1) The US Military in the early 80's and 90's had enourmous problems with private sector bids and implementation, of software in defense systems.
Namely, every vendor delivered a portion of the system in a different language. Some languages were specifically invented to deliver the final product.
These systems were large and complex, and non trivial engineering problems developed between vendors who needed to integrate thier combined efforts to deliver the product.
2) As systems were delivered the cost too maintain them was very high due to the fact there was no common reference for the software implementation.
What I mean by this is, if you have a flight control system, or launch control system, and it has a bug or engineering issue. It is very difficult to see exactly what the problem is if it incorporates or was delivered with 8 different computer grammars.
3) These systems had artificially short life spans due to the fact they could not be easily upgraded. That is too say, for example, the above flight control system coulnd't be upgraded because the target language(s) could not be reimplemented on new hardware.
My point about MONO and CLI?
Which is:
1) If we accept the historical data on building complicated pieces of software, we can reduce the costs of a implementation if it is reduced to one language or computer grammar to build its entire scope.
The military's solution to this was to produce key critical compenents of a defense system project using one reference specification. The computer grammar they picked was called ADA.
I question if the CLI is actually a good idea in a concept that allows or permits multiple language platforms to cooperate, if the goal is to produce software that is easy to use, is of low defects and is cost effective.
Historically the military with budgets far beyond anything commercially accesible couldn't do it and produce quality defense systems.
2) If the CLI provides a capability to produce a GNOME vision of support for multiple language platforms, given historic research in the software engineering areas, CLI suggests that anything built with a
3) Considering the fact that such a system would produce diverse computer grammars in any authors favorite language, for contributing authors, a future
If we accept that historic software engineering suggests multiple computer grammars result in systems that:
1) Require a very high engineering cost.
2) Quality of the software suffers because fewer individuals can access the entire code base to make corrections.
Personally, in IMHO organizational scalability and human productivity issues in building this sort of software are problems with N different grammars being used to build a single piece of software.
Therefore, I believe CLI is really not a positive addition to an Open Source Project.
-hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
What I have read myself so far:
* Inside C#. Microsoft Press, good.
* C# Essentials: O'Reilly, if you want to learn it quickly, and do not care about details.
* The ECMA C# standard is useful if you want to write your own compiler 8-)
Miguel.
Unless that class inherits or calls proprietary library stuff that you don't have.
This is why I can't run most Java stuff on my Amiga. I have the Kaffe JVM, but no AWT. So I can run a program that says "hello world" and even Sun's Java compiler (written in Java) that comes with the JDK. But AWT or Swing apps are right out, because no one has implemented that stuff for my OS.
You're going to have the same problem running Microsoft Office on Linux. Your VM will work perfectly, but the app will want to use stuff that you don't have.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
'GNU is a free re-implementations of Unix...'
Hey! I thought GNU is Not Unix!
Get your recursive acronyms right buddy.
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Remember this?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Look - what is Microsoft? It is a big company, one which is in a serious crisis right now - it's main revenue streams are drying up in the form of slow Office/Windows XP sales (well, slow compared to what they need to be). Hence Hailstorm, which is a big part of .NET
So - consider that Linux is the first real competition MS has had on the desktop/server market for years (forget apple, they have survived by selling to a niche, mainly artists, not business/home). Now consider that they are desperate for cash, lots of it.
So, considering all that, how likely is it that MS will invest millions into a new platform for Windows, and then allow it's primary competitor to make it about a zillion times easier to port code from Win32 to Linux? Not very is the answer. Remember this - Microsoft HATE Linux: their corporate leaders see open source as "wrong" etc, and of course Linux is already good as a server and making headway on the desktop, so how do they respond to this threat?
Seems obvious - they need .NET, but what they don't need is to be giving their competitors a leg up by developing an expensive technology. They'll try and keep .NET Win32 only, and they won't have to try hard. Yes, yes, we all know about the ECMA submissions, but lets face it: There are standards, and there are standards. C#, CLI etc. will be de-facto standards soon, but that doesn't make them anymore acceptable, regardless of whether they've been rubber-stamped by ECMA or not.
Having said all that, you've got to give Miguel respect: he knows good technology when he sees it and isn't afraid of politics. I love some of Microsofts software, I just don't love the company. Problem is, in cases like .NET they are inextricably linked.
yeah. anyway, rant over. it's much longer than i thought it would be anyway.
thanks -mike
OK, so the fantastical claim is that one could run .NET doze binaries via Mono (balderdash). Why is Mono in this regard going to be ANY different than wine? Windoze APIs are published so software developers can write windoze apps. C# is "published" - the APIs are there so anyone can use them. Big frickin' deal. Even with the published windoze APIs, with wine you can only run a fraction of a percent of windoze apps. The problem IS the intimate tie-in of API to windoze proper. C# APIs are no different (if they are, WHY?). They have their fingers tied right into the OS too.
All it seems that aspect of Mono is about is duplicating wine in a .NET framework instead of the classic win32 framework (which ties into .NET and C# since they ARE the windoze API that you are playing with when writing doze code, yes?
So the fantastical claim is that Mono will do better than wine at implementing doze api/functions in linux. That's what wine tries to do and they've been at it for years! It's nice, and all, but there's a buttload of windoze apps that just don't work in wine. By the time they do (IF they do) there will be new apps out there that people want to use that WONT work. Why wouldn't Mono experience the exact same problem?
.NET is designed with WINDOZE in mind. It is the target platform of .NET. To Gates, the internet and computers are and/or should be Windoze PCs or Windoze handhelds, etc. Everything else is invisable to Gates or is something to be extinguished.
Unless someone can explain why JUST because C# APIs may be published that means jackdiddle (vis a vis win32 apis being published and the success of wine) for running windoze .NET crap on linux? Even if you refer to VMs, the VM is designed by and for Windoze and M$, NOT competitors (or potential competitors).
I think that if Miguel and Ximian want a "better" developer environment, then fine, speak of ONLY that but forget about (entirely) .NET and anything Windoze/M$. It is pollution that will not work out and it confuses the issue. You like the development environment of .NET? Fine, go with a similar development environment for LINUX and that is ALL.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
And...every word he writes about Java doesn't somehow apply to C#? The IDENTICAL language with a few "embrace and extend" features from M$ for the SOLE purpose of undermining a competitor?
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
They're saying "You know, I do dig eunuchs... Wanna go out?"
And if you're wondering, yes, I know...
That's a core part of the Mono project... Creating compatible libraries that work on Linux. Because of the OOP nature of the .NET frameworks, Mono can (and hopefully will) be ported to other OS's, like MacOS X. Linux gets Gnome-specific GUI tie-ins, and the Mac will eventually get Aqua-specific tie-ins.
Yeah, no doubt that C# is great for a WIndoze software developer. Hooks into the heart of WIndoze for improved speed, etc. Problem...those frickin libs and functions don't exist anywhere but on windoze using directx crap and win32.
Wine is having a fun time implementing all the published windoze apis in linux aren't they?
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Hmmm, I thought Sun charged a J2EE license fee for those ISVs who incorporate it in their offerings (like IBM and BEA). There never has been a direct cost for end users that I know of. (It also may be possible to clean-room the APIs and not call it J2EE, I'm not sure.)
All right, I did some checking and here's the result. I doubt Sun has dropped these fees since, please cite a reference if you think so.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Hey! It's another pathetic AC troll, making an ad-hominem attack! *yawn*
Try and add a little more substance to your argument...why is ECMA certification desirable for Java? Will I see some tangible improvement, somewhere? There is already a well-defined, published standard for the Java language.
I'm not holding my breath for a response...
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Okay, I must admit I have lost all respect for GNOME/Ximian, now.
.NOT Framework, then it will be just as bulky and unreliable as windows programs.
Miguel has this "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude, which usually goes along with being a follower, not a leader. Some friends I have, who are also MS people, always jokingly say, "Don't fight it... don't fight it! Let Uncle Bill take care of you!". I really hate that way of thinking.
Open source is about pure innovation, and problem solving, not porting others' work over to the free world (necessarily).
The other beef I have is with his comments regarding productivity. He says he has reached a point where he has "implemented too many linked lists", etc etc. My problem is, a good programmer knows how to reuse his/her code, and not reimplement ALL of it from scratch every damn time. You know why Microsoft's code is so bulky and unreliable? It's because they made their API's so attractive to lazy programmers who "don't want to deal with all that hard stuff" by doing it all for them. You write a "hello world" program in windows, and you'll be lucky if it isn't under 200Kb, because the routines and libraries that actually got compiled in are the same ones MS Office uses.
If we ignore the small and tedious details to programming, and base GNOME on the
Good software is not made by people who want to "get it done quickly and efficiently", it's made by people who want to spend the time to do it right, and "get it to run quickly and make it efficient". It's only one way or the other... we can drag 'n drop our way to building an application, but it sure as hell won't be as fast/reliable/efficient/good as a program written in a text editor, compiled by hand, checked and rechecked.
Microsoft has harmed me, on a very personal level, by severely damaging a piece of intellectual property I placed in thier care. I wrote a book for them that they butchered in the name of trying to control Java.
So I have no love for Microsoft, and don't trust them further than I can kick their legal department.
Who do I trust? you ask. It's hard to say, really; relatively speaking, I "trust" Linus more than Miguel, and I trust both of them more than I do Mr. Gates. My level of trust has something to do with intent: Linus never intended to change the world; even now, he's more interested in making Linux "work" than he is in "beating" Microsoft -- and that's an attitude I can trust. Miguel, on the other hand -- well, I can't put my finger on it, but his attitude just "feels" wrong. Maybe I'm splitting non-existent hairs... so I try to give Miguel the benefit of the doubt and take him at his word.
As for Mr. Gates... let's just say that I've shaken his hand, and twelve years later, it still feels a bit dirty.
All about me
Doesn't matter what they WANT. M$ *IS* a corrupt, illegal monopolist NOW. If the others WANT to be, so what, they aren't and likely wont be. It does matter that M$ IS and it is deadass wrong to help them continue or secure a new monopoly.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
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Its incredible that people have lost their understanding of what a godsend the UNIX API is. Right now, you can download random POSIX programs off the internet and reasonably except them to compile correctly on your machine, whether you're running Linux, BSD, or (gasp!) BeOS. Its the portability of .NET without its performance problems and with the addition of an emphasis on open source software. Isn't that the way it should be?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The problem with "frameworks" that appear now -- Java, all generations of COM, .NET, etc. is that they basically don't do anything useful. They are implementations of someone's "vision" how software is supposed to be developed, and how existing two component models -- that is, one provided by shared libraries, and another one by interprocess communications, should be replaced by something more "object oriented". And all those visions are wrong, simply because at this point mankind has as much chances to develop a better component model as thousand years ago it had chances to develop better means of long-range transportation than a horse and a sailing ship -- the level of technology was inadequate for that and will be for quite a while.
But people are ambitious and instead of writing little useful things -- say, a serializer for data formats that will simplify communications, they are trying to create a GREAT NEW SYSTEM with everything existing replaced with some GREAT NEW IDEA plus every petty piece of idiosyncaasy that a particular developer or company has at the moment. That produced Java, and that plus typical Microsoft's aspirations to create more incompatibilities per hour than they were able before, produced .NET.
The fact is, for a programmer who is writing a new code, "framework" like this gives very little -- dynamic libraries existed for a long time, anything written in C can be now called from any other language that can load a library, and IPC is still not used at its full potential, especially considering that programmers (Gnome ones included) were indoctrinated with superstition that context switches are more expensive than additional in-core pages while in modern systems context switches are cheap, IPC is efficient, but data-structures bloat that causes huge amount of data sitting in memory in a tangled mess becomes a huge problem for speed even if memory itself is cheap.
For a programmer who wishes to use components developed for Windows it gives nothing, too -- the whole strategy of Windows development is to keep things unusable outside Windows, and certainly mixing few proprietary pieces in the mix will poison everything developed on Windows just like things being developed now are poisoned for everyone who agrees to anything less than a complete emulation of every ugly piece that Microsoft managed to throw into Windows. In other words -- if you will want to run something developed for Windows, you will need Windows, all Windows and you will have very little chance to add anything but Windows. You can emulate it, but then you will basically become it. So all this talk about "inevitable success" of .NET on Windows is pointless -- at best you can outrun them (despite some umm... strange ideology changes that reminds me Communist Party line, the development of GNOME is going fast enough), at least you can ignore them (Microsoft will replace it with something else soon anyway), but you can't assimilate them.
Oh, btw., the use of borg-style metaphors was intentional but not essential to this piece of advice.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
C++ has a rudimentary but surprisingly effective memory management tool called the autoptr (or auto_ptr, depending on who's talking). It's essentially a thin class wrapped around a pointer. When the class goes out of scope, the autoptr destructor is called. It deletes the pointer contained within the class, thus returning whatever was pointed at to the memory pool. It ensures proper object destruction, etc., etc.
If you don't know about the autoptr, then maybe you'd better not make statements about C++'s lack of memory management assistance.
I've used the autoptr a fair bit, and it's a surprisingly handy and low-overhead way of solving a lot of dangling-pointer errors.
Then why implement a C# compiler for it?
.NET truly is a good technology, which stands on it's own merit, and not because it happens to be the next lock-in tool of corporate behemoth Microsoft, then why would it not be immediately useful as a platform for existing proven Linux development tools and techniques?
.NET is a complete waste of time, which will fail to gain critical mass, despite the enormous pressure on developers from that fucking clown Steve Ballmer and his crew.
.NET ever play a significant role in it's frameworks.
Surely implementing something already in wide use within the Linux community - C, Java, Perl or Python would be much more useful than implementing some new, unproven toy language like C#.
If
Personally, I think
.NET offers nothing we don't already have except for the 'Made by Microsoft' stamp, but it's been a long time since that mark held any sway over me and my choice of development tools.
Obviously, Miguel de Icaza is free to do whatever floats his boat, but you can count me as a 'former user of the GNOME project' should
Maybe its petty politics and free-software rhetoric from RMS etc. that has led me to this decision, but thats how disillusioned I am with Microsoft and it's products.
I don't trust them, don't like them, and I feel much gratitude to the developers of Linux and all that has been built on top of it that lets get as far away from Microsoft and their shithouse software as possible.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
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(That apparently explains why when I request an install from Ximian.com, apt-get reports that the one package of evolution is going to consume something around 110MB of disk space...)
Unfortunately, the design of Java is such that it nicely interoperates with, well, Java, and um, Java, and, um, not too much else. (Unless you jump into FFI stuff that's always terribly fiddly, and leaps you back into writing constructors and destructors in C for the interface code...)
The "JVM" thing offers some portability, but Java suffers from the huge problem that all the Kool Stuff in J2EE and Swing and such that you'd like to use is, well, only marginally less encumbered by Sun licenses than .NET services will be by Microsoft licenses.
Count the number of major Java apps that are installed by default in your favorite Linux distribution. That number is usually zero, as you get to choose between:
And it really wouldn't do anything to solve the problems at hand, as it still mandates spending lots of time writing constructors and destructors. Plus there's no quasi-standard ABI, so that you'll be recompiling incessantly.
And then there's the KDE problem where library loading takes quite a bit of time because of resolution of virtual methods...
But I think the real reason for "no C++" is simply that Miguel doesn't much like C++.
So Miguel wants something a tad more dynamic than C/C++, particularly vis-a-vis memory management. I find it a little disappointing that he didn't take a serious look at some of the mature languages already out there.
- GNU Ada is a whopping lot more mature than G++, for instance, and would offer some "software engineering" merits.
- There are a good set of Eiffel compilers, and that combines OO with GC as well as the "Design by Contract" thing that Miguel has consciously tipped his hat to.
- Modula 3 is another "unsung language;" OO plus GC plus well-defined threading, even.
If he's looking for a better language in which to build more stuff like Evolution, I'd think these three to be eminently plausible Good Alternatives to designing a new Virtual Machine environment along with a whole set of compilers.If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Um... wouldn't boycotting these technologies (such as they are) make their reach that much less than if you weren't boycotting them?
Weird to be seeing hardcore Microsoft propaganda from an open source project leader. Why doesn't he just go over to Microsoft and work for them if he wants their stuff deployed that much? Why is he even bothering to be involved with free software at all? Of course, didn't he also arrange to have a free project _drop_ the LGPL and go with a more proprietary-friendly arrangement? Who is this guy?
An ancient verse in Open SOurce Lore...
Gee, so I guess that makes Miguel de Icaza Celebrimor, building his own runtime based on secrets given to him by the Dark Lord of Redmond, disguised as Annatar, Lord of Gifts. Maybe RMS is Elrond, watchful and distrustful of this mysterious being bearing secrets...
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
The long term plans for Java include items such as tail-recursion and templates but they came up too late in the dev cycle to include in 1.4 without pushing the release date out too far. 1.5 is slated to have an updated bytecode format (although presumably backwards compatible in much the same way that 1.02-era applets still run for the most part in JDK 1.3)
.NET
Don't presume that Java isn't a moving target for
It's not like Sun and IBM are planning on standing still and waiting for Microsoft to catch up.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Right. A proof of concept was when other languages were compiled to java bytecode. There may have been earlier ones too.
If I remember correctly is used in Borlands C++ Builder & Delphi to some extent. C++ Builder compilers down to the same thing as Delphi and if I remember correctly they use the same linker. ... I beleive this is where they got this ideas behind CIL and combined it with the Java virtual Machine model.
Um. Nope. CIL stands for Common Intermediate Language.
Neither Delphi nor BCB are interpreted, JIT'd or run on virtual machine. Nor do they use an intermediate language of any kind.
The language that they have in common is in fact x86 assembly. The reason that the Delphi VCL can be used in BCB is that they share an object file format.
Maybe the idea of sharing a class library came over from Borland with Anders Heijsberg, but the method of achieving it is different.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I hope it helps convey your message.
.Net you'll always be behind -- I don't understand the argument. If you *don't* start implementing it, you'll be even farther behind -- unless they're suggesting that you use something even better. If that's their suggestion, then perhaps they could point it out to you.
Really, those people who claim that if you start implementing
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Sun Tzu:
I would apply the corollary: "One hour of your enemy's time is worth twenty of your own." The principle is that you are not only getting your enemy's preparations and resources to work for your goals, but you also prevent him from using them against you. Your own resources are many times more costly to build up. Microsoft sees Miguel as a tool, and they are waging Ximian against Gnome (the GNU GUI) with the goal of making GNU oriented developers waste their time even learning C#.If we need a new language, why don't more people get together and decide on all the goals of that language? If we need to link compiled code from disparate languages together, why not write a CORBA spec or something? The key concept here is DO NOT LET MICROSOFT SLIP INTO YOUR PROJECT'S DEPENDANCIES.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Aye, but this be not Britain. A crucial difference, lad.
for any STL container (which should be used by most people), you can pass in your own allocator class. In that class, you handle your own memory management. If you want to reduce fragmentation, you allocate very large blocks of memory and then do "placement new" calls to allocate memory. Problem solved.
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
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