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KDE Adopting Mono

Posted by timothy on from the big-change dept.

leandrod writes "The Register reports that members of KDE are committing to use and support mono, Ximian's independent .Net implementation. Not only does this provide KDE with some of the multilingual programmability it initially forfeited by its use of Qt, it also spells well for cross-desktop application and even KDE-Gnome desktop integration, because mono is developed by Gnome's most prominent ISV, Ximian, and is intended for Gnome integration." Update: 09/12 14:22 GMT by T : Actually, the Register story overstates things a bit, it seems. According to KDE developer Hetz Ben Hamo (heunique), "Yes, you can use QT# to write QT/KDE apps, but it doesn't mean that KDE will support mono. you can use kernel 2.4, but you can use any linux kernel or any other unix based OS." See also this comment from David Faure for more insight.

28 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. KDE-Gnome desktop integration by wiredog · · Score: 3, Offtopic

    I run Gnome desktop, but use kmail and other kde apps. I can even cut and paste between them. Seems to me the integration is already, to a large extent, there.

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    1. Re:KDE-Gnome desktop integration by Space+Coyote · · Score: 3, Funny

      When you're happy that cut and paste actually works I think it's a sign you've been using X-Windows for too long.

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      Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
  2. Great by doc_traig · · Score: 3, Funny


    Once KDE has mono (and it will for months), it will become sluggish, weak, and completely addicted to bad daytime television. I advise staying away for a while, and don't share any of its apps.

    - DDT

    --
    So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
  3. Re:So what about Microsoft's IP? by alexc · · Score: 3, Informative

    I believe MONO just uses the CLR standard that is given to the ECMA. The rest is just reverse engineering of the class libraries which i believe is still legal. Heck microsoft benefited from reverse engineering..
    this just my guess..

    alex

  4. hope mono gets it right... by TechnoVooDooDaddy · · Score: 5, Insightful
    otherwise KDE is going to suffer the same crippling crush of bloat that Windows is getting from .NET

    I wrote a small maintenence application, and compiled it targeting non-.NET Win32, the file was 19 meg.. ok, yeah, it's probably got the runtime in there... a similar java runtime is 7 or 8 meg.

    KDE is also going to suffer from a similar rash of programmers like windows VB programmers who thing that dragging and dropping an application together makes them every bit as valuable as someone who can lovingly craft inline assembler into their C routines for speed and keep an eye on memory utilization. The dot.bomb shakeup was good for scaring those VB types out of the industry for a bit, but MS is still trying to sway focus over to "productivity" over stability or longevity.

    Yeah i know i'm ranting, but i've got mana to burn.

    1. Re:hope mono gets it right... by Mr_Silver · · Score: 5, Insightful
      KDE is also going to suffer from a similar rash of programmers like windows VB programmers who thing that dragging and dropping an application together makes them every bit as valuable as someone who can lovingly craft inline assembler into their C routines for speed and keep an eye on memory utilization.

      If a VB programmer has "dragged and dropped" an application together that I need and I can afford, then I fail to see what makes them any less valuable than the C and inline assembler programmers who haven't done such a thing.

      There are plenty of good and useful VB applications out there, same as there are plenty of crap and bloated C and inline assembler applications out there.

      Rather than mainly scoring applications based on the language they were written in, you should give priority to the task they perform. Personally (as a user) I don't give a toss what language something is written in, if it works and does the job.

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    2. Re:hope mono gets it right... by XaXXon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      KDE is also going to suffer from a similar rash of programmers like windows VB programmers who thing that dragging and dropping an application together makes them every bit as valuable as someone who can lovingly craft inline assembler into their C routines for speed and keep an eye on memory utilization.

      Personally, I don't care how a program is written. And I know very few people are going to complain about having more apps for Linux. Many applications have absolutely no need to be written in highly optimized C. This can cause more errors, and more time spent trying to optimize for an extra 20% boost and leaves less time for adding new features. Personally, I'll take the one that takes 20% longer to run with 80% more features..

      The dot.bomb shakeup was good for scaring those VB types out of the industry for a bit, but MS is still trying to sway focus over to "productivity" over stability or longevity.

      If you had been paying attention, the "dot.bomb shakeup", as you call it, had very little to do with technology and far more to do with business models. It didn't matter what programming language you used to set up your online dog-food website, it wasn't going to make it. These companies were doomed from the start, and did not go out of business because they hired VB programmers instead of K&R C programmers.

    3. Re:hope mono gets it right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      As somebody who works on large products for large firms, let me assure you that I truley appreciate programmers who can and do "lovingly craft inline assembler into their C routines for speed and keep an eye on memory utilization."

      However, there is a time and a place for that and most projects are not the time for that. I hate to crush you, but I find myself more and more hiring the type of programmer you are putting down. You know, the Business School MIS guys, instead of the Computer Science guys.

      They may not be able to "lovingly craft inline assembler into their C routines for speed and keep an eye on memory utilization", but they can understand the goals, delivering a complete system that does X, is delivered by Y, and comforms to specification Z, so maintainence isn't such a nightmare. They also tend to be more willing to fully document their work, why won't so many geeks do this? Really, I want to know!

      I recently had a major run in with one of my most talented code monkeys who had spent the last couple weeks branching his section of code off into a "more efficient design". He did save me 10% on my footprint, but he broke specs in doing so, which I am contractually obligated to not do. My MIS employees get that for the most part, they apparently understand things like business plans and liability. Oh yeah, the database guys would have to break specs and rework a couple weeks worth of work to implement his "more efficient design."

      Now the project is most likely going to be a week or so late. The money our client will lose during that week would be enough to buy 20-30% more memory. So the more efficient design is actually a net loss for my client, as well as my firm, since the cost of revision is much more than the cost of upgrading the hardware. He doesn't get that, he thinks it is a sin to code like I want him to. He needs business training.

      On the other hand, I do sometimes want to pull out my hair with the stupidity of some of my MIS guys, I sometimes wonder if some had ever even got beyond drawing forms in VB. But, I can teach them those skills much more easily than I can teach business skills to geeks with no interest in it.

      My best employees usually fall into two categories:

      1. CS guys who are interested in business, those who are geeks at heart, but hope to open their own shop some day, they will actually look at the BIG picture, not their little slice of the pie.

      2. MIS guys who really do like tech, they are business folks at heart, but they really do love technology and have learned on their own many of the skills the Business schools didn't teach them.

      PS- You are on crack if you think coding close to the metal is inherintly more stable and long lasting. Documentation and the ability to follow specs is key to creating systems that will work well immediately and in the future.

    4. Re:hope mono gets it right... by samael · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is what programmers due, pay attention to memory management, pointers, etc.

      Nope, what programmers do is take input and convert it to the desired output. If they can do so in VB and produce something that fulfills the requirements in half the time they could do it in C++ then they should use VB to do so.

      --
      My Journal
    5. Re:hope mono gets it right... by IIRCAFAIKIANAL · · Score: 3, Insightful

      YOu pulled the words out of my mouth.

      There are two parts of my job - analysis and programming. If I can code faster in VB, Delphi, java, whatever, then I will ( of course, we have to consider company language/platform standards too, but anyway).

      If I have a production environment w/ 1 ghz intel boxes with 256 megs of ram and I am writing software to display reports, I don't give a shit if I save 2 megs of memory by managing it myself. I want to get that app out as quickly and with as few bugs as possible.

      I am quite capable of paying attention to memory management and other low level stuff (having learned asm before I learned VB) - I just don't see why I should bother.

      --
      Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
  5. irony by sprytel · · Score: 4, Funny

    anyone else find it ironic that its microsoft technology that may finally enable integration between kde & gnome?

    that bill gates... he's all about love, unity, and linux... ;-)

  6. WRONG by dfaure · · Score: 5, Informative

    What a load of mis-information....

    The Qt-C# / KDE-C# developer might be proud of his language bindings (undoubtly it's cool that those exist), but that's no reason to spread such wrong rumours. (I'm not accusing him, it could very well be the journalist from TheRegister who's making most of this up).

    There is NO decision from the KDE project to do ANYTHING with C#, .NET or Mono at this point.

    It's amazing how much bullshit people can invent.

    David, KDE/KOffice developer.

    1. Re:WRONG by manyoso · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are right. I tried to correct some of Gavin's statements such as: 'Qt is a language'

      LOL, but I was in the middle of dinner when he called and he didn't have time to wait...

      KDE is not 'switching' to Mono nor has KDE 'adopted' Mono, but some developers are attempting to include support for Mono in KDE. That's it. It is a another choice for the developer and IMHO a very _cool_ choice :-)

      Cheers,

      Adam

    2. Re:WRONG by dfaure · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ah, so the interview was done over the phone and you had no way to check the printed version before it went online? That's very bad IMHO, they should check with the person interviewed first. That's how misunderstandings happen - such as this one.

      The article was already very misleading IMHO, the slashdot headline even more so. I think many more statements should have been corrected in that article...

      Well, thanks for the work on the language bindings, keep it up.
      David Faure.

    3. Re:WRONG by manyoso · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well Gavin emailed Joseph and Andreas first. Then he emailed me and that's where he got the quotes. I pointed him to Miguel for questions about Mono. I think he mistated Miguel a few times too (read: Mono has 15,000 libraries) LOL

      Then he gave me a call last night and we talked. I explained a few things. Later that night he sent me the draft and called. He explained that he had 15 minutes for me to correct anything. I emailed him some suggestions later that night, but he apparently didn't get them in time.

      Oh well, the point of the article is that we are in the process of adding some cool bindings to KDE not just the Qt# ones, but also some DCOP as well as Joseph attempting to extend Kate to allow plugins written in Qt#.

      I stand by the quotes though. I think a Mono binding is good for KDE, because it allows multi-language support through one binding. To put another way, it adds C# _plus_ MonoBasic and all the other languages Mono and DotGNU support.

      It also holds the promise of more apps for KDE if some windows developers are intrigued. I think that's a winning combination :-)

      Adam

    4. Re:WRONG by manyoso · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, we are in the middle of changing our license to the LGPL so Qt# will not hinder proprietary apps, but you'll still have to license Qt from Trolltech and you should because they've made an excellent toolkit :-)

      I am glad to hear that you are excited and we'll continue to try and make these bindings as solid as possible.

      Have a nice day,

      Adam

    5. Re:WRONG by dfaure · · Score: 3, Interesting

      1) IMHO it's the responsibility of a journalist to check for facts before "forwarding" a story. The lack of doing so is how so many wrong stories appear everywhere. It's just too easy: as soon as one person says nonsense somewhere, all "news" sites pick it up... That's not journalism, that's "spreading rumours".

      It's especially frustrating for those who "know the truth", to see that we don't even have time to get the initial website corrected, all the other news sites make news out of it immediately.

      2) The article on theRegister does not say "KDE is adopting mono" like the /. headline said. It felt like this was being said behind the lines, the the headline on /. is really amplifying this wrong 'fact'.

  7. Re:Bad news for Linux? by dfaure · · Score: 3

    > KDE and Gnome have conspired together to merge their underlying implementations

    Don't worry, they haven't.
    Don't believe everything you read.

    When, oh when will journalists *check* for facts first?

  8. Using multiple languages with the Mono framework by Carl · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Hi,

    Is there a good example why/how something like Mono/DotGNU helps using libraries written in/used from other programming languages?

    How does one for example mix and match a program written in C# which uses the iconv C library and the Qt C++ library while using the Guile library to give the user a scheme scripting extension to the program.

    I looked at the IK.VM.NET a DotNet Java implementation using GNU Classpath. You will see that there is a lot of work needed to make for example Java Exceptions work correctly with C# exceptions (Java exceptions are mostly checked, C# exceptions are never checked at compile time). And even simpler things as mixing the basic Sting classes or the IO library seem like it is non-trivial.

    And C# and Java are really very much like each other. What about mixing more "exotic" languages like Logo and Scheme with Prolog or even basic C?

    The DotNet runtime seems to support multiple language on top of it but it is not clear how that helps adapting libraries to multiple languages. It seems to me that you still have to write wrappers around every library to make it work with the way for example Strings, Dictonaries or other standard datastructures are represented/used in the different languages. It seems to me that mixing multiple languages will always be a challenge when programming.

  9. Well, yeah by wiredog · · Score: 3, Funny

    but what's the alternative? Windows XP?

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  10. Bad headline by JamesKPolk · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is no Mono code in KDE cvs.

    Repeat: There is no Mono code in KDE cvs.

    The only Mono discussion on either kde-devel or kde-core-devel has been by the Mono developers plus some Ximian people, who were there due to the CCs from the Qt Mono announcements.

    Nothing to see here. Please disperse.

    1. Re:Bad headline by JamesKPolk · · Score: 4, Informative

      OK, I'll clarify. There's no *KDE* Mono code in CVS.

      Hint: Qt is not KDE. Qt is one library KDE uses.

    2. Re:Bad headline by manyoso · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is true. But as the article states we are working on DCOP bindings and the Kate plugin. When Qt# is in a solid state, we'll extend to include bindings for kdelib.

  11. Very cool - but I want more by avdi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is an *excellent* sign, both of the ever-closer relationships of the GNOME and KDE people, and of good times ahead for coders. .NET/Mono is a great step forward for hackers like me who want to be able pick the right language for the job, rather than being forced to choose the language that happens to have the needed libraries.

    On the other hand, it looks like the GNOME and KDE teams are poised on duplicating the same rift that currently exists between free GUI toolkits. Rather than standardize on either Windows Forms or a similar alternative API, both projects are porting their own toolkit APIs to C#, in the form of Gtk# and Qt#. Which means that developers will *still* have to commit to one toolkit or the other for a given project, because the APIs are totally different.

    The opportunity GNOME and KDE have with this agreement is huge: write a unified GUI API equivalent to Windows Forms, with both Gtk and Qt backends. Let developers write to the single API, and let end users view the results rendered by whichever toolkit they prefer. Yes, it would be a lot of work. Yes, it would involve a lot of impedence matching. Yes, for some applications it would still be necessary to use the underlying toolkit for effects which have no equivalent on the other toolkit. But the gains in Open Source productivity would be huge - a prime source of unnecessary duplication of effort, the idea that every good application has to be written twice, once for KDE and once for GNOME, would finally be eliminated.

    Take the opportunity guys - the community will be thanking you for years.

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  12. Re:Using multiple languages with the Mono framewor by manyoso · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well some of those more 'exotic' languages are already being implemented with Mono. Like Logo for instance has 'MonoLogo' :-)

    As far as mixing languages, it's quite easy. If you want to mix the libraries that you were referring to then there would have to be bindings for those libraries. But any library that Mono or DotGNU supports can be used by any language that Mono or DotGNU supports.

  13. multilingual programmability what ? by InodoroPereyra · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Not only does this provide KDE with some of the multilingual programmability it initially forfeited by its use of Qt

    You mean you are ignoring this ?. I just read David Faure's comment. Is it me or this article is a troll ???

  14. A refutation by Epeeist · · Score: 3, Interesting
    1. It is not patented
    2. The trademark is controlled by a single company, the actual implementation is not
    3. It may not be a standard, but all the specifications are published. To my mind this is much better than a partial submission to a standards body, without disclosure of what may or may not be patented, copyrighted or subject to law suits at a later date.
    4. Initial releases of Swing were memory and CPU hogs. The current versions are much better
  15. Re:How usably is Mono atm? by miguel · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://haydn.sf.net is your embedding into apache.

    You can already embed ASP.NET in there (or if you werea the O'Reilly conference, you could have seen ASP.NET embedded into Gnumeric).

    Mono self-sustains, so that means that we can compile it with itself (the compiler and class libraries are written in C#). So you could say that for compiler work it is already usable ;-)))

    Other than that, it depends on the particular class libraries that you are looking for.