Slashdot Mirror
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."
We all know how MS feels about non-MS operating systems. We all know they're using .NET as a way to lock people into Windows servers and desktops. There's NO WAY they're gonna hang out and let poor Linux play in their reindeer games.
No...they'll go ahead and change their infrastructure so that it doesn't work with open source code.
That this "phonic" thing, built with the ultra-portable .net dealy, still only runs on linux (or at least nix-ish) machines with gtk?
.net apps written for windows similarly only work with the "windows gui toolkit" (or whatever)?
On a more serious note...
Seriously. Where's the portability at? Will
The .Net framework is a very clean and interesting initiative. Forget Passport, forget web-services and all the other pieces and focus only on the framework and the common language runtime (that the focus of MONO) - its neat, and being able to compile code on several platforms without worrying about ports is a great achievement.
Off course, don't use platform-specific calls (PInvoke) if you want interoperability, but almost everything else is ok.
Hey, this sounded pretty cool at first. I mean, the more languages the better, right? ;) Plus, I hate it when the Winblowz lusers get to play with pretty toys I can't get on my Linux boxen.
:(
But then I reconsidered. First, a little background. C# was, is, and always will be, a Micro$oft invention. Like it did with SMB and OLE, not to mention DirectX and ZIP, M$ will have no reservations about mucking with C# just to break Mono compatibility.
In the case of SMB, we live with this. SMB has become a de facto standard in the enterprise, so Samba is forced to follow M$'s lead and keep up. But no such market forces exist for C#. Right now, it's a minority player against giants like Java and C++.
By supporting C# through Mono, Linux only serves to make it more popular. In doing so, it makes M$ more powerful. The Mono project is about as counterproductive toward Linux advancement as a Free Software project can be.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I am not interested in .NET because of M$'s clout, but I am somewhat interested in CLR and the standard libraries because it may be a genuinely useful technology. I'm not interested much in C#, as it appears to be quite similar to Java with some C++-like stuff, but if the promise of easy cross-language development is true, that is interesting. Of course, that is possible with a JVM and standard Java libraries, but the CLR may be superior in that respect. Let's wait and see.
My favorite part of
[o]_O
On a side note, I would like to see Ximian or the GNU Foundation talking at how MONO and DOT-GNU differ on purpose or how they are similar.
Frankly, they seem to have the same end goal, and I'm afraid this is a duplicate effort that would be better off if they joined forces.
Dot-GNU: http://www.gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/index.html
Microsoft has proven again and again that, in the end, they *will* win
Really? They *always* win?
Bob
MSN
IIS
MSN
ASP Microsoft Office
Hailstorm
etc, etc
Yeah... it's hopeless...
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
the other parts of .net such as passport, application services and MS web services are the troubling part. mono has nothing to do with these.
I use C#, ASP.NET and VS.NET at work. I find developing web applications with these MS technologies glumed together as irritating as it gets. While the integration between disperate technologies is commendible, VS.NET is slower than frozen mud. Give me a good text editor and command line tools any day.
.NET with Windows to the point that Mono will never work. MS will release new .NET crap every year and Mono will play catch up for a year so it finally works again just as MS is releasing a new incompatible version.
.NET. Microsoft has proven time and again that it can't play well with others. I think Java has a good record for working everywhere consistantly.
I think that the whole Mono project will turn out to be a major debacle. Microsoft is going to integrate and complicate
In the past, Microsoft has either presented an "open" standard, or pushed someone else's open standard, only to hijack it in the end, to the detriment of non-Windows users and developers.
I think the Open Source community would be better off backing a web technology like J2EE and not
I would recommend consulting members of the Wine and Samba development groups. I'm sure they have plenty of horror stories about working with constantly changing MS technologies.
Two of our developers just came back from a .NET training session and were wowed beyond belief. (Note: This session was put on by a private company, not Microsoft). These guys were hardcore Linux/Java hackers working on our latest web based application. What changed their mind? It was the tools. The code had *NOTHING* to do with it as far as they were concerned. I told them there were OSS alternatives that pretty much replicated all of the .NET functionality. They still shook their heads saying it's the tools they were introduced to that made the real difference, not the code. One small example they used was that the MSFT tools allow you to backtrace a transaction all the way from your HTML front end clear on in to the database with a simple click of a button. There were a lot of other examples, but that was the one that stood out in my mind the most. It was the fact that they could write code faster and worry less about the crap that tipped the scales.
The thinking progresses with the argument that since we're developing on Microsoft tools we should be running a Microsoft OS on our servers since no two JVM's 'er I mean CLR's are alike...
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
> And Mono is why I swtiched from Gnome to KDE.
.NET in GNOME.
> Any more questions?
Yes, I have the following question:
Why does a small group of developers (some of whom happen to also work on gnome) working on the mono project constitute a reason to abandon gnome?
Mono is in no way linked to the gnome desktop, and IMHO is unlikely to become thusly linked in the near future. The opinions of Miguel (sp?) may have misled you... there is no
Microsoft Bob... Need I say more? :)
.Net is going to get used by the places that have tended towards being heavily windows environments originally. Companies that have been using Unix, Linux, and Java will probably not be moving to .Net anytime soon.
.Net on Linux provided that it works well and provided that I can have faith that, in the long term, I'll be able to do this without risking a microsoft tax or lock-in.
.Net. Wait until enough people develop .Net solutions on alternative platforms then say, "well that's great, now you can pay us a license fee."
.Net I'd probably see it as a good thing. Hell, I've been a java developer for a while and I don't think much better of Sun than I do of Microsoft. The only reason I trust sun to stick with some level of openess is that it's about the only ammunition they have available to leverage against Microsoft's hegemony.
Overall
Personally I'd be very interested in using
My big concern down the road is that Microsoft is going to start using patents and license restrictions to control the fate of
I just can't believe that Microsoft would develop any technology that wasn't designed from the ground up to further their control. If just about any other company had put forth
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
We're playing the wrong game here. We need to have microsoft constantly chasing after US to keep up to date with the existing "standards", not the other way around. The open source community as a whole needs to be frontlining new standards. If we can keep Microsoft and other evil empires constantly playing catchup, it will severely limit the damage they can do overall. Sure, they'll play the embrace and extend game, but only if we give them enough time to do so.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Developers may love it, but what about consumers? American consumers have proven time and again that they prefer a sense of ownership. They like to have their applications installed on their machine. As much as Microsoft would like all our apps to be pay-per-use webservices, I just don't believe that this is a future that the consumer is going to buy into.
.NET. It seems to me that they're chasing UNIX and trying to get the remote user capability while still clinging to their misguided one-user-per-machine attitude.
.NET. I don't think the capabilities it offers are particularly innovative.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the concept of services, in fact I like it. I'm currently planning a server/thinclient setup for my house. But, once again, it had better be my apps running from my server.
Anyway, maybe I'm totally misreading the intention behind
I just can't seem to get excited about
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
And if someone - anyone - started working on Mono on KDE, you'd leave KDE? If we keep this up, maybe we can push you all the way to CP/M.
Mono has nothing to do with GNOME. If you'd do your research you'd realize that they are seperate projects and that the rumors that GNOME is going to be based on .NET are just that -- rumors. There are some people that are involved in both projects, however, the GNOME project has come out and said they currently have no plans to move to MONO or .NET any time soon. Maybe someday, who knows? But they are SEPERATE projects. Read Miguel de Icaza's own
reply to this idea.
.NET framework that are really nice. What's more, unlike Sun, M$ has given their language and technology up to be standardized. In that sense, it's more free than Java.
Besides, have you ever looked at the MONO project? They're doing some really impressive stuff. You probably shouldn't write it off just because you're afraid of M$. I'm a java programmer and an avid Linux user, however, there are some features of C# and the
Who said Freedom was Fair?
I can't speak for all the "dot-net languages", but I've been writing lots of ASP.Net code in C# and VB.Net recently and guess what? It's not the tools, it is the framework itself.
.Net SDK and what makes me all wowed is how quickly I can do things that used to take hours to build on ASP 2.0, like complex form interfaces, data validation, query output, etc. It's well worth looking at the samples to get acquainted with, I bet you'll be surprised with how powerfull and flexible the framework is :-)
I'm not using Visual Studio, I'm working out of the
Mono is why I switched girl friends.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
There was an article just the other day on here about how web developers are designing for Microsoft now and ignoring standards. Though Microsoft is never going to make themselves fully incompatible with other browsers, they have continued to distinguish themselves from the competition by their "innovations". The result is that while I can surf websites on linux using mozilla, I will be given a decidedly different experience doing so. Some sites will refuse to let me in all together, and others will just break horribly.
Now, you might say the reaction to this is that those companies will suffer from losing my business. Yeah, so they are losing what, 5% of the market? Ooooo, big deal. This causes people who don't have a tolerance for these glitches to go with a windows platform out of their lack of patience for that stuff.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I guess I have to make my obligitory post on this subject:
As a technology person, I like the .NET framework, the web services aspects, the runtime, and I think C# is infinitely better than C++ (then again, what isn't...). I'm looking forward to playing with C# on my Linux machine.
But I'm just a little creeped out by the idea of using Mono for anything important (business-related), such as deploying services or products. I really have trouble figuring out what Microsoft has to gain from allowing Mono to exist indefinitely. They have plenty to gain from a sweeping, cross-plaform, bait-and-switch ploy.. they can just wait until Mono is somewhat established, apps are built and deployed... then break it and wait patiently for the inevitable migration back to Windows.
I would like to hear from Microsoft that they won't sue any Mono developer (or user) for patent infringement. I'd like to hear that all relevant APIs and specification are public and open and will stay that way. Miguel's attitude seems to be one of "hope", quote:
Now, I could be all wrong, Microsoft actually might not mind that we will use their technology and not their products...but...this is Microsoft we're talking about here.
Sure this sounds like fear, uncertainty, and doubt, but that's exactly what I feel whenever I think about Mono......
Hmm, that does not seem a wise choice in light of this: http://qtcsharp.sourceforge.net and this: http://developer.kde.org/language-bindings/qtcshar p/index.html
;-)
You can find these bindings in KDE's cvs for quite sometime.
Cheers!
1. Mono is a separate project from GNOME
2. KDE and QT are also developing bindings for MONO
What are you going to do now? Switch to TWM?
Well, .NET 1.0 was released on January, so by that metric Mono is already late to the game. But so is every other piece of free software, and we still manage to do a great job.
Miguel
Look at .NET, what is it? Basically it's just another API (plus some other enhancements, but I told you to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.) like the Win32 API
Microsoft wants to fuel upgrades just like the transition from Win16 to Win32 fueled upgrades.
The worst case in a Linux-point-of-view is that everything stays the same - Windows-apps don't run under Linux.
The best case is that .NET apps run under Mono/Linux right from the start.
from the Ximian web site:
* The Mono C# compiler was able to compile itself on December
28th, 2002. The resulting image contained errors though.
i'd say it was a good guess that they have errors with announcements like that...
----
i do not use drugs, i AM drugs -- Dali
while microsoft is going to support COM, they do want it to fade away in favor of .net components...
.net equivalents of generic COM interfaces.
There are
Honestly, though, I think there is just too much invested in COM by various companies to get away from it, at least within the next 10 years.
We need to have microsoft constantly chasing after US
.NET offer, really? "Portable" code and remote apps? Java has offered portable code for about 7 years now, and remote apps predate Unix.
They are. Can you name a single "technology" MS has announced recently that *nix hasn't had for years (if not decades)? What does
All MS has done since they started developing NT is chase *nix. The only thing I can think of that they might have had a head start on is the GUI, but I have my doubts about that, too. What OS was Xerox using at PARC, anyway?
The problem for *nix is that the general public isn't aware of that fact.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
About some people using a technology out of religion rather than merit.
.NET but I tend to see it as an exit strategy from the OS market (in a world where the OS market is saturating in the key markets in the developed world). This is a real reason that open source, being more flexible in its development pace (and giving customers what they need through community effort rather than centralized marketing). So, I wish Mono the best.
This interview is a very interesting interview in part because it seems to indicate that Mono is a good way of getting Windows developers into Open Source software development-- something that Microsoft has generally been pretty successful at preventing. I have generally likes what I have seen in
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This doesn't really add up to much.
Only about 120 classes of the 1200 in the Dotnet platform are standardized as part of the C Sharp language, so standardization offers little protection if your application uses a GUI (Windows Forms, Web Forms) or a database (ADO Dotnet). Not only are these libraries not standardized, they are likely to be protected by patents.
Sun does not have the same room for manoeuvre as MS since the JCP has other powerful participants. In practice, there have been few ownership/legal issues in developing Open Source versions of the JVM - see the Kawa web site for a list of these. Their complaints revolve around issues such as access to the test suites - ultimately Sun just owns the Java name, not all the implementations.
We are not planning ourselves on writing one, but several people have expressed their interest on doing so.
There is already a proof that this can be done (Microsoft's JUMP), but it is not fundamentally a hard problem either.
There are three groups of people to my knowledge working on free software versions of such a tool.
Miguel
Cheers!
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
They already have extended 'it', if we mean Dotnet rather than C Sharp. Fussing about the language is a red herring.
Look at the toolsets, the final contenders I looked at for a cross-platform GUI toolkit were: .NET .NET:
Trolltech Qt
GTK
Delphi/Kylix
wxWindows
-Poor history of MSW undocumented APIs.
-Poor history of MSW trying to break other toolsets not blessed by the company.
-Poor history of MSW once actually finishing a piece of software's features (eg Office) trying to find other ways to pinch money off people.
-Poor history towards GPL software.
Qt:
-A strong contender: good documentation, tools.
-Lost out because they say the Windows version requires a purchased copy of Visual C++ to do any compiling with it.
-Emulates widgets instead of using native.
GTK (1.2 back then, I can't comment on 2.0):
-Very free.
-A lot of component scattered libraries makes documentation difficult.
-Sometimes higher level widgets don't exist: need to make them from scratch using the window primitives.
-MSW port is a bit rough.
Delphi/Kylix:
-Easy to use, a company respected by me that makes good software.
-No Mac available.
-Proprietary, liable to not be maintained if company goes under.
-Free version is nagware under Linux, I believe their documentation said.
wxWindows:
-Works out of the box, now.
-A single project can be compiled for MSW, GTK, OSX and less commons like X11 embedded.
-Good documentation, sample code, etc.
-Core team is *very* accepting to new features and sharper code.
-Native widgets always used, where they exist makes a proper look and feel for an application.
-The open library in unencumbered by a company that needs to ship new versions of tools or the library.
-Fast: native compiles so no runtimes needed.
-The C++ is designed to by truly compatible with almost any compiler, toolset, not ones blessed by one certain company.
-Well tested (10 years).
-Tools and library are no cost, (or nagware). Free compilers exist on all supported platforms.
wxWindows was the one that was selected, and now 10 months into the project, I am very satisfied with the results from that toolkit choice.
-----
Cast a Cold Eye
On Life, on Death
Horseman, pass by
--W.B. Yeats' gravestone
Mono is a stupid reason to switch from Gnome to KDE, in that the Gnome project has not accepted Mono. It's a proposal from the Ximian folks that Gnome eventually accept Mono. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Gnome project split if Mono were forced on it in a central role (rather than as an optional add-on), as many Gnome developers are not fans of it at all.
What will you do if some KDE developer says he wants to support .NET in the KDE framework? You'll then have to drop KDE, since you drop platforms based merely on proposals that they go in a direction you don't like.
The documentation alone is enough for me!
-Lost out because they say the Windows version requires a purchased copy of Visual C++ to do any compiling with it.
Well, I don't really care that much about supporting a legacy OS but TrollTech claim that Borland works too. Haven't tried it myself.
-Emulates widgets instead of using native.
But this allows some control over the style (I don't believe in repeating MS's mistakes: a good UI is better than one that has familiar screw-ups like having shutdown under "Start").
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
"While the C# compiler, itself written in C#..." ....umm.... wha.... uhh........ how the.......... ummmmmm.....
And the Linux croud hasn't been chasing Windows for the past several years in an attempt to copy the Windows "look and feel" on the desktop?
Gnome/KDE are nothing more than attempts to mimic the Windows GUI.
OpenOffice/etc. are nothing more than attempts to mimic popular Microsoft productivity applications.
First, I would like to post a link to an MSDN article on Microsoft's attempt to build a .NET implementation on FreeBSD.
Second, I am a C# and VB.NET programmer. I have really enjoyed using the new VS.NET, and love ASP.NET. The way it treats web pages with an event model is very, very cool. As I am also a PHP programmer, I consider ASP.NET, concept wise, a giant leap ahead of PHP. VS.NET runs a bit slow on my 400 MHz machine, but cruises along smoothly on my 1.6 GHz laptop. Plus, it handles much better than Sun's Forte, a comparable product that would let me build comparable software solutions.
Third, I am VERY excited to be made aware of MONO! I have done quite a bit of Java programming in my past, and am glad to have a better alternative to it for building enterprise level applications on Linux. I have not had the level of "undocumented features" bite me in my .NET programs as I have in VC++, VB6 or Java. Say what you will about the evil empire, but the .NET framework is a very well thought through, nice behaving programming platform. I wish the MONO team the best of luck, and am thinking of volunteering!
Fourth (and finally) I have been teaching some VB.NET and C# classes. I have found all of my students walking away from the classes wanting to use .NET, including Linux programmers. I would tell you hardcore MS haters out there to at least try out .NET, especially if it is going to be implemented on Linux. I think you will find that it could be a great tool for you to build software with, if you take of the blinders. After all, why not take what is Microsoft's big marketing push and turn it against them on Linux?
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As someone has already pointed out, unlike the GNOME C# bindings which are hosted on a third-party site, go-mono.com, Qt# is already included in the main KDE distribution.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
MS don't give a toss about the ECMA or any other standards body. They treat HTML as if they were the standards body (remember all of two days ago we had this story about the effect MS has on "standards" and that was one they didn't even invent!) they just want some stamp of approval that they're playing nice at the start of the game. After that the ECMA can pack up and go home, Bill won't be needing them anymore.
MONO simply gives more credence to .NET by allowing MS to honestly (not that that's ever bothered them!) say that .NET is a cross-platform technology. Of course, they'll add, the non-Windows versions aren't very good. And they'll be telling the truth.
The reason they'll be telling the truth is that they will make it their business to make it true. Every point upgrade (and there'll be lots of them) will come out just as MONO catches up with the changes since the one before last, making MONO a permanent 'old version' of .NET. And if the point update breaks old code or ignores the "standard" guess what? MS couldn't care less. Their customers will be locked in, they won't be able to change to MONO because it will be two points back and not able to do what the customers' software needs. So it'll be out with the chequebook again to add another wing to Bill mansion.
I mean, for Christ's sake, it's not like Microsoft haven't done this all before! What are you people? BLIND???
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Personal computer GUIs are all strikingly similar, whether you're talking about Mac, Windows, KDE, GNOME, fvwm, AmigaDOS... The list goes on and on. When you get right down to it there is really very little variation beyond the cosmetic, and even then the same elements are recognizable across the vast majority of them.
I ask again; what OS was Xerox's GUI built on?
Oh, and Openoffice owes far more to WordPerfect than to MSO. Perhaps it's time to take a step out of your MS-PR-department-provided box and take a look around. When you learn the real history of computing, you'll find that MS is actually one of the least innovative companies that has ever existed.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I think Ximian's Mono project may do something unintentially pro-Microsoft: it could turn the entire Microsoft .NET initiative into a de facto standard before Sun figures out what hit them.
.NET is trying to achieve. Between Microsoft implementing .NET Framework with its own tools and Ximian implementing .NET Framework with Open Source tools, Sun has its work seriously cut out to convince the majority of developers to write code for the competing Liberty Alliance (as if Sun's wishy-washy attitude towards the Linux crowd in regards to Java hasn't offended a lot of Linux/FreeBSD/OpenBSD programmers already).
In fact, why do you think Microsoft has actually not stood in the way of Mono? Because Mono validates much of what
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Given that OpenOffice mimicks the GUI of MS Office(did you see how similar the GUI(buttons position, style, etc...) is ?) I tend to think that OpenOffice is actually nothing else that an Office clone, actually it's just worse, but very similar.
Mono only is addressing the development and exection environments portion of the pie. Mono has nothing to do with the "web services" you are talking about.
.NET and why it's going to take over the world. Microsofts vision of .NET seems to encompass all of the things you list, and while the server and developement/execution portions of that vision might be loved by developers, they're almost totally invisible to the consumer.
That maybe, and in truth that's what I would expect. However, this thread is not about Mono, but
The "privacy" and webservice parts are all that's going to be visible to the consumer will see, and I very much doubt that they will like what they see.
I'm curious, though, what you see MS' vision of webservices is if not pay-per-use remote apps?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
MS Office pretty much mimicks the old WordPerfect GUI, and OpenOffice follows WordPerfect much more closely than it follows MSO.
I'll say it again, and a bit more bluntly this time: Microsoft has not produced a single innovation with regards to GUI design, even in terms of look-and-feel.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Can you name a single new technology that has appeared in UNIX in recent years that was not in VMS or MULTICS?
This type of argument is pure sophistry, either Microsoft are accused of stealling other peoples stuff (hard to do with open standards) or they are ignoring open standards.
Until WS-Security was proposed nobody had had any success with a transaction layer security enhancement. HTTPS failled, SHEN failled, PEM and MOSS failled. PGP and S/MIME had some success but they are limited to email.
Now nobody would claim WS-Security to be amazingly novel, however Microsoft, IBM and VeriSign have got the whole industry behind a spec in that niche which has never happened before.
As for all the 'nothing new has happened since Xerox' stuff, I suggest the people with that dellusion stop eating the mushrooms and go and use one of the things. OK so you can kinda sorta see the beginings of the ideas we use twenty years later, but they got as much wrong as they got right.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
If you implement the .NET framework you can pretty quickly build the Web Services framework. Most of the Web Services support in .NET is bound up in the XML Serialization layer which uses the metadata supported in .NET to generate XML serialization and deserialization code directly from .NET classes.
OK so this is a trick that appeared in the LISP machine 15 years ago but none of the mainstream companies have supported it since - up to now.
Having tried to use the MSFT Web Services tools I decided that it would be easier to roll my own for my purposes (although since I bought the cheapo standard version of C# rather than the whole .NET studio that may just be I was doing things the hard way). However it is a heck of a lot easier to deal with XML in C# than in any other language I have used.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Okay
But that's as long as they don't use any native methods, right?
So I can write something that will run on multiple platforms.. you mean like java does now?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, no audio player at this time can be cross platform in .NET, because even MS's FCL doesn't include facilities for sound playback. You have to make system calls directly of the system's APIs, which obviously differ from platform to platform.
.NET app... maybe the Ogg decoding's written in .NET, but the audio playback's definitely not and the UI may not be either?
I don't know what Phonic's using GTK for. I suspect it's even one step further removed from being a true
Comment removed based on user account deletion
dotgnu is another effort to develope a .net clone under GPL and here is a FAQ
Yes ;-)
But we are planning on staying compatible with their class libraries and not make changes, for the sake of users, developers and customers.
That being said, we also encourage people to create new technologies and new classes and innovative things in their own class libraries. For instance Vorbis# (mostly done by Mark) and Gtk# (mostly done by Mike and Rachel) are extensions that originated in the Mono world.
You really want your new classes/assemblies to work on both Windows and Unix, because that gives you a larger user base.
Miguel
A great new 'way to develop'? What exactly are you driving at here?
As a matter of interest, what do you think the chances of a cross-platform (Mono, Dotnet) version of Photoshop are?
About the CLI - common language Infrastructure and part 2 of CLI information
To really understand what is going on here, consider the CTS - Common Type System and the CIL - Common Intermediate Language as a midway translation point for any programming language.
With this other programing languages or other programming mehodology interfaces can more easily be created.
It's like taking all popular programming languages and putting them into a pot and boiling them down to common and non-conflicting data types and programming concepts. And from here, using the summed vocabulary set of data types and concepts as a translation base to use in converting a program written in your convient programming language choice into CIL or Common Intermediate Language bytecode. From which you can run on any systemj that has a VES or Virtual Execution System type of system installed.
This of course allows both intrepreted and compiled types of languages to potentially be used.
Chasing others technologies and implementing their own successful variants are one of MS' specialities. First, they catch up, then they use their huge influence to make it the new standard. Doesn't need to be better or even on par with the technology they've chased, either.
I guess that's partly what MS has been in trial for. Often, MS can be seen as hurting the evolution of software for their own profit.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
- Can you name a single "technology" MS has announced recently that *nix hasn't had for years (if not decades)?
:-P
DirectX
Optical Mice
Scroll Wheel on Mouse (I think this was theirs)
Back and Forwards Net buttons on Mice
The Windows key
Suppose that I decided to use .NET on Windows. I look around, and find that they support Perl. Cool, so I go and use some Perl libraries in various places. Perl is as cross-platform as it gets, I am fine. Right?
.NET sucks goat d*ck on handling dynamic languages. Since Perl on .NET was too slow, even by .NET standards, its "integration" is through a custom modification that exports a COM interface, that is imported into .NET. Works fine on Windows. But on Linux, what then?
No. I am utterly fscked.
Perl uses a dynamic programming model.
And once people get going, how many real applications are going to use Windows forms, or link in some other library, or link in a COM interface from a legacy app, or otherwise become unportable?
Care to guess whether future tools from Microsoft will "encourage" you to introduce such dependencies?
Thanks, but no thanks. I have had to work with Microsoft APIs too much for my taste. That is why I try not to now.
It appears that the reason you didn't choose .NET was based entirely on emotional, rather than technical reasons.
Is this normally how you make decisions?
VS.NET is slower than frozen mud
.Net SDK.
.NET with Windows to the point that Mono will never work.
.Net is the problems they solved for developers.
.NET crap every year and Mono will play catch up for a year so it finally works again just as MS is releasing a new incompatible version.
.NET.
.NET, and Sun has certainly been less supportive to developers with their Java than Microsoft is being with .NET.
Buy a new machine. One that handles VS.NET well will set you back about $500.
Give me a good text editor and command line tools any day.
They are there, in all their glory. If you want to do everything by hand you can. Save yourself some money and just download the
Microsoft is going to integrate and complicate
The point of Mono is not to be 100% cross-platform compatible. The purpose is to provide a similar development environment for Linux/Gnome. If you read Miguel's commentary what impresses him most about
Now at a very base level, there is some compatibility. You have the same language syntax with C#, and it sounds like they are using the same IL assembly calls. But you are going to be missing many of the custom Windows libraries. But is that important? Wouldn't you expect custom libraries evolve for Linux specific features?
MS will release new
Why is this important to you?
In the past, Microsoft has either presented an "open" standard, or pushed someone else's open standard, only to hijack it in the end, to the detriment of non-Windows users and developers.
But then so have non-Windows developers. Netscape, Sun, there are many examples. Even GNU is guilty of this, as I can no longer compile many open source programs with the tools that come with commercial unix because of extensions added to GNU make and GNU cc.
I think the Open Source community would be better off backing a web technology like J2EE and not
Why? J2EE is technically inferior to
I think Java has a good record for working everywhere consistantly.
One of our foreign development shops just looked into running their web app they wrote with BEA's Weblogic on a different J2EE implementation. They can't do it without extensive recoding because each Java implementation contains custom stuff to differentiate themselves. In this case it had something to do with database connection caching, or something, which wasn't added by Sun in the J2EE specs but offers signifigant performance gains.
What does .NET offer, really? "Portable" code and remote apps? Java has offered portable code for about 7 years now, and remote apps predate Unix.
.NET is about so much as increasing developer productivity.
Well actually so did Microsoft BASIC back 20 years ago.
I've still got my Creative Computing Games books if you want to type in the code.
Being "Portable" isn't what
Actually as far as like ASP.NET is concerned, I would use PHP as a more comparable example than Java.
All MS has done since they started developing NT is chase *nix.
And all Unix has done is chase the Mainframe. What is the Web anyone but 3270 terminals with color pictures?
The problem for *nix is that the general public isn't aware of that fact.
No, the public just doesn't care. That's the part that really bothers you.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm still trying to figure it out. At first I head all about using .net and web application service providers - kinda what CORBA or DCOM does - run this procedure over there and give me the results.
.net and run it on anyplace that supports .NET - much live Java does.
It also sounds like you can write something in a language as long as it does nothing other than pure
So, is it basically Java with DCOM/RPC stuff built in using XML to pass data back and forth?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes! Give me .Net! I can hardly wait to run all of the windows apps including the lates viri!
I really think that Linux is missing out on the fun. I mean sure, it's stable and secure but what adventure is there in that? I want to wonder every time I boot up if I'll see: "You have been hacked by the Windoz Nukum Worm! Hard drive formatting now...."!
Oh yes! Why should Windows users have all of the fun?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
(quoted, because the same kind of people seem to have at least one 'Troll' moderation on this guy- starting from 2 I can make it a bit more difficult for 'em to suppress this meme)
Slashdot has not been hijacked. Slashdot is, and has always been, open to astroturfing just as it is to genuine feedback. Nothing is stopping anyone from astroturfing Slashdot: they can do it on company time for all _I_ care, and welcome to it. We know Microsoft has people do this: they've been caught doing it before. It's not even some evil plot from Bill Gates: the company culture so strongly reinforces that type of behavior that it's like a negative value system- what would seem bad to you (astroturfing, putting up fake positive posts professing to be not Microsoft PR but real users and fellow slashdotters) would be seen as totally good and loyal and clever and virtuous, within Microsoft.
Besides, everybody knows Microsoft ARE geeks, so why wouldn't they be reading Slashdot?
You just have to learn to identify when they are doing their thing, that's all. Just because someone is a geek, or smart, doesn't mean they are honest. Some of the MS slashdotters are very open about where they're from. Because, WITHIN Microsoft, that is not as good as laying down some astroturf to compete harder, some of the MS slashdotters are taking nicks and astroturfing their little hearts out, probably to show their bosses in hopes of looking more Microsoftish to the boss. This is just the way the world works.
Get used to not believing everything you see, hear or read- even on Slashdot. ESPECIALLY on Slashdot. Half the time if you see a 'voice of reason', especially if it's pushing for things like leniency towards Microsoft, acceptance of non-YRO-friendly stuff and so on... it's probably a plant.
Yes, Virginia, people on Microsoft's payroll and people of Microsoft's corporate culture ARE still permitted to post things to Slashdot. Even if it's propaganda. Even if it's flat-out lies.
Welcome to freedom, hold on to your wallet :D
".NET could be the biggest blunder of Microsoft's history, taking away the only advantage they really got (a huge software library)."
.NET apps do you think will be allowed to run on "untrusted OSes?"
I use to think that way too but with Microsoft's DRM push how many
So, like you said. At least we won't be any worse off then we already are... or are we overlooking something?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
The interview was done long before I posted those messages to the mono-list. After the interview I looked at the problem in more depth, and focused on the current strategy.
;-)
I fail to have my entire life planned in advance, so I have to make changes as I go, sorry if this annoys you
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Syntax is a cinch to learn, it's the new APIs that are a pain in the keister. In fact, that is one of the reasons that the Mono hackers are interested in .NET. They think that it would be cool to write modules in C# and use them in Perl, or write modules in Lisp and import them into Python.
Personally I don't know if it will work better than the writing libraries in C and creating language interfaces, but it is possible that the Mono hackers are onto something.
Gee, I guess if you repeat it often enough it becomes true. The site you linked is, judging by the snide comments abut Windows' "features", a tad biased. Do you have any other sources?
What were the predecessors to the Visual Studio IDE? To IntelliSense? To drag-n-drop GUI building? Dropdown menus that show frequently-used items, adjusting themselves over time?
I'm not trying to troll here, and it's not entirely off-topic. As with a previous post on MS projects that failed, debates about the future of .Net need to be framed in an accurate asessment of Microsoft's history of success and inovation.
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. Yet products like Bob suggest this isn't true. 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?
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?
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
There is very little emotion in either my post or my decision.
.NET Framework?"
.NET was not taken as the platform of choice and the reasons were not technical. I think .NET will certainly be competent, as the technical lead was the guy behind Delphi.
.NET. The possibilty of that occurring moves .NET to the back of the pack as their counterparts can already do what I need without that extra weight looming over the project.
The question posed by the article was "Would you use an open-source implementation of the
I listed the reasons why
I am a GPL software author. C# is an unproven new language to assess in my choices. I am absolutely going to judge the likely future of a language by looking at the past history of the company who will be managing its development.
Microsoft has quite openly stated that they think GPL is a virus, and there has been rumblings of making it illegal to use their development tools in the creation/conjunction of GPL software or libraries (which is their right to do).
However, a major software project is a large commitment of time--porting to another language down the road is unlikely to be trivial. if Microsoft takes their familar road with C#, and my code becomes illegal to compile, or I now everyone who wants to work on the software now has to fork over $500 a year for a MS-blessed C# compiler to be able to contribute to the GPL project, I will have regretted my choice of
But the results also matter. Here are some development snapshot screenshots, fresh off a clean compile on Linux and MSW, built with wxWindows with no MFCs, Microsoft dlls or anything else that can be made illegal or prohibitively expensive later on:
http://www.clinicalexam.com/pluckerdesktop/tour
-----
Cast a Cold Eye
On Life, on Death
Horseman, pass by
--W.B. Yeats' gravestone
If you don't feel right killing someone, you don't do it, do you?
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
You make a good point but I believe Miguel deserves quite a bit of credit for all the work he has done and his optimism.
In other words, give him a break. If you know someone specifically who has had this problem, let him speak for himself.
Oh, and Miguel if you get around to reading this, thanks.
DirectX
:-P
Oooh... an API wrapper! that's origional!
Optical Mice
MS didn't invent the optical mouse, they bought it (or stole it, depending on who you ask). Regardless, laser based mice have existed at least as long as Microsoft has.
Regardless, since *nix isn't hardware, I'd say you're reaching here.
Scroll Wheel on Mouse (I think this was theirs)
Again, hardware. I agree that scroll wheels could be a lot easier to set up in *nix, though.
Back and Forwards Net buttons on Mice
I saw mice with 10-key pads on them at Fry's long before MS came out with their 5-button mouse. Mapping the extra buttons to Forward and Back may have been new, though.
The Windows key
Gotta give this one to Apple with the "open apple" and "closed apple" keys.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
either Microsoft are accused of stealling other peoples stuff (hard to do with open standards) or they are ignoring open standards.
What do you mean "or"? MS has done both on occasion (or at least tried). SMB, HTML, Java...
As for all the 'nothing new has happened since Xerox' stuff, I suggest the people with that dellusion stop eating the mushrooms and go and use one of the things. OK so you can kinda sorta see the beginings of the ideas we use twenty years later, but they got as much wrong as they got right.
I never said nothing new had happened since Xerox, just that it didn't come out of Microsoft. MS has consistently trailed in the UI race since it entered.
I also never said that UNIX was entirely new, either (although it at least started out with some new ideas).
I don't have an inherent problem with MS taking other's ideas and using them, but I do have a problem with them calling it innovation.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Do you have any experiance with the interface builders listed here?
I'm not doubting your story or anything, but details about these tools a pretty sketchy.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Looking at most of the postings here, allthough most of them are posted by non-developers and brainless collegekids, I can only think: what a sad bunch of people. .NET is one hell of a platform with a very well thought out API, documentation and complete functionality. Now there is this Linux developer and his team at Ximian who ports that platform to Linux and all the fools at /. are able to do is cry out what a crap .NET is, how Miquel is a slave of MS, oh sorry, M$, and that Mono will suck as .NET already does.
*RRRRT*
If Mono fails on Linux, Linux is dead. Be aware of that.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
In the real universe, it's M$loth's excuse to port the
What's 'M$loth' ? And what does the DoJ crap has to do with the quality of
There's also nothing new under the sun. Running other language environments ("hosting", my ass) has been done ever since emacs was written in lisp running on a C-based machine.
Fyi: Lisp is interpreted, C# and the other 20 or so languages for
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I have yet to see a Microsoft tool (or any other tool) that lets me write code faster. Tools require time and effort to use. It's much better to just to get it right the first time.
I also think wxWindows is by far the best cross platform C/C++ toolkit around right now: it's free for both non-commercial and commercial use, runs on lots of platforms, can use native widgets, is mature, and has tons of functionality. Many more open source projects should use it.
But calling this a "true innovation" is ridiculous. Both .NET and Java are decades old technology. Neither Microsoft nor Sun "innovated" there. Except for the snazzier graphics, people were building the same kind of VM systems and object-oriented languages in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Not only are these libraries not standardized, they are likely to be protected by patents.
That's FUD. You can't protect "libraries" by patents, only inventions. And there are unlikely to be many patentable inventions in the APIs of common GUI and OS libraries.
ultimately Sun just owns the Java name, not all the implementations.
There is effectively only one Java implementation: Sun's and its derivatives. And since there is no standard for even the core language and libraries, there aren't going to be any others, only some tinkering with things vaguely like Java.
I never said AWT wasn't broken. I said I preferred it to the bloat of swing.
;-)
:)
... It just might be time for a change ... maybe when mono is more mature I'll make a permament switch.
Since all you're stuff is drawn to a virtual screen
You mean YOUR, what next? Spelling colour "color" ?!!!
I'm still waiting for gjc to support mingw32 and sql, fantastic product in all other cercumstances though
Course I believe in making the wheel rounder and not reinventing it everytime the old one gives you a crappy ride.
Of course, but you know that the java virtual machine was designed over 10 years ago (when java was oak) is showing its age. JVM has some life in it yet, don't get me wrong
I know I can (or will be able to) under the CLR.
Could you tell me what definition you are using for the word know? Does it mean anything more than "A salesman promissed me"?
I'm not definitely saying that you are wrong. I've seen attempts to port Basic, so there are, indeed, those who thing it a reasonable thing to do. But all of the VB code that I've ever seen depends so heavily on platform specific libraries, that I have strong doubts. And it will take a lot more than a salesman's promisses before I believe that MS will actually port their libraries to Linux.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
My objective is not to suggest alternatives, but rather to support my arguement that Microsoft does not innovate.
As for Unix GUI tools, I have no difficulty understanding why they came around so late in the game. In many ways a GUI is anathema to Unix. Unix was built around the central philosophy of taking many small programs, each of which does one thing very well, and being able to string them together to accomplish complex tasks. GUIs effectively remove that ability.
Am I wrong? Has someone found a way to implement the pipe graphically? Without the pipe, what advantage does Unix have?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I'm a huge fan of .Net. I don't mind using Windows clients, but I want to use Unix/Linux servers. What you're doing is going to make that possible, and I think it's great. Thank you.
As for the scope of your project, feel free figure it out as you go along like all the rest of us do. The guy mouthing off about your "lies" is an idiot. If you have to choose a technology for an upcoming project and you can't afford to be wrong, you'd better choose from among technologies that already exist. What you are offering is technolgies that *might* exist, that so many of us *want* to exist, but might not if things don't work out, and even if they eventually do exist nobody knows for sure when they'll be ready for production use. That's the way it works for big companies, small startups, OSS projects, pretty much everyone creating new tools. That's what "in development" means to project planners with any sense.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
I probably sounded a lot more "hardcore Unix" than I intended to. I'm fully aware of the need for monkey-level GUI tools on Unix (it just makes me sad) in order to gain popular acceptance, but at the same time I keep running into the limitations imposed by those tools while working on Windows.
;-)
For example, I recently had a strong desire to do some mass database manipulation/extraction at work. The only experience I have with that sort of thing is from my Intro to Unix class, but we use Access for all the databases I have any reason to look at. I figured it would take me a few minutes to work out the syntax to do what I wanted with cut, but I could do it even with my limited knowledge, and hey, we use Windows and it should be even easier there, right? Our IT guy, who's Windows only but definately above monkey level, looked at me like I was mad (or maybe had a disfiguring disease) and said "No! It's not easy to do that at all!"
Anyway, my point is that I'm all for making the hard things easy, but we need to be very careful that in the process we don't make the easy things hard, or even worse, the clever things impossible.
For one, from a developer's perspective, system call traces that don't require buying multi-hundred or multi-thousand-dollar third party packages, to do the job.
But, there's no reason any other OS couldn't have that, just nobody has done it. The pipe, and the whole philosophy around it, is the thing that sets Unix apart from all the rest.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
1) Drivers
2) Games
3) A broad user base
Interesting. None of those are technologies, per se, neither did any of them origionate with Microsoft. In fact, Unix had all of those before anyone had even heard of Microsoft.
You and your 3 friends, who couldn't get laid in a whorehouse even if they had a $50 bill hanging out of their zippers
That's probably true, but mostly because I would be to busy getting my ass kicked by my wife for being in a whorehouse in the first place. I have to admit that I've never attempted this experiment, though, since I've never had any difficulty getting laid, even without the assistance of a $50 bill.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.