Mono and .NET - An Interview

all-of-the-dot writes "Would you use an open-source implementation of the .NET Framework? Ximian's Mono project enables you to build .NET apps that run on Linux and Unix as well as Windows. Check out the story from .NET Magazine's interview with Miguel de Icaza, Ximian cofounder and CTO" Added to which, AirLace writes "The Mono project has just achieved full self-hosting on Linux. While the C# compiler, itself written in C#, has been able to compile itself since March, Mono can now compile its own complete set of class libraries too. This announcement closely follows the release of the Phonic media player, the first .NET application for the GNOME desktop."

Comments

Re:It's no use to resist .NET....

[MrResistor]

The site you linked is, judging by the snide comments abut Windows' "features", a tad biased.

That couldn't possibly be because MS has been consistently behind their competition in GUI design. Did you actually look at the screen shots?

What were the predecessors to the Visual Studio IDE?... To drag-n-drop GUI building?

One of these might fit the bill.

To IntelliSense?

Autocompletion was hardly a new thing. MS seems to be pretty vague about what else it does.

Dropdown menus that show frequently-used items, adjusting themselves over time?

I admit I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but then I don't have much more than a passing familiarity with most other GUIs.

It seems most folks on slashdot believe Microsoft can simply bully its way to the top of any field, forcing people to adopt anythning it produces.

Perhaps because it often does? OEM contracts come to mind.

Yet products like Bob suggest this isn't true.

Some things just suck so bad that no amount of bullying will help (and yes, I have used Bob).

So, why do some, but by no means all, Microsoft products succeed? Clever copying of proven ideas? Subtle innovation? Reinvention of older ideas, with improvements based on 20/20 hindsight?

I would replace "innovation" with "variation on a theme", and add the strategy of attrition. Just because a company or product failed doesn't mean there weren't some good ideas there. MS has always been good at picking up those ideas and running with them. Successful? Yes, but hardly innovative.

People snipe at the idea of a .Net VM as a Java ripoff. The Java VM is a Pascal P-code VM ripoff, but done better. Java swiped ideas from C++, and improved certain things. Could it be a similar case for C#/.Net?

I never claimed MS was the only one that did that. I just have a problem with them claiming credit for the idea, when anyone who takes a little time to investigate can find that it simply isn't true.

For the record, I find Windows quite usable. MS has taken a lot of good ideas from a lot of sources and put them into something that works, but none of it is new (with the possible exception of menus hiding stuff, but I actually find that irritating).