Slashdot Mirror
Portable.NET Now 100% Free Software
rhysweatherley writes "Finally after months of hard work and bucket loads of caffeine, the
DotGNU community has finally got
Portable.NET
to the point of building our C# libraries on many Free Software
platforms with our own C# compiler.
This is a big deal! Portable.NET is now 100% pure Free Software,
with no dependencies on third party C# tools. The compiler, which
is written in C, bootstraps off gcc, so there are no icky 'how to
compile the compiler' problems. And it's fast! The DotGNU team consists of lots of contributors, many of whom are
coincidentially named 'Rhys Weatherley,' but this wouldn't have been
possible without the support of the DotGNU community, especially
the Weekend Warriors. .NET is not the only thing we are doing. We're playing around with JVM and Parrot (of perl6 fame) backends to the compiler. And we have a
C compiler front-end that generates pure bytecode apps that can run
on any decent CIL implementation (Portable.NET, Mono, etc). We are about 95% of the way towards our first milestone of an
ECMA-compatible C# implementation. There are lots of things still
to be done in the low-level C# libraries, runtime engine, and the
compiler. So, if you have some time on your hands, and like messing with
languages and stuff, like yours truly ... have look and maybe
have some fun!"
Time to re-evaluate... It might be good afterall...
So confused... Is it weekends that we like MS, or just Saturdays, or just 6-7pm EST...
Damn it...
Tournament Management Online &
So how do the two projects, DotGnu and Mono compare? I could be way off base here, but it seems to me like yet another of the great OSS wars. You know, vi and emacs, kde and gnome, etc.
Can someone please tell me I'm wrong and explain why?
Blink
You know - I'm a tried and true perl and open source hacker and believer. But then I got this job doing .NET and c#. It was hard at first because I've been of the opinion that m$ really sucks because they're a monopoly, they extort $ out of schools, etc. etc.
But in terms of pure technological merit, c# is a damn good language! Especially if you use the vs.net ide, you can get stuff done way fast. So keep an open mind w/ this language. It's very exciting to be able to build stuff using vs.net, and deploy on linux.
Keep up the good work on this project guys!!
we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively - bill hicks
I doubt that will happen. They'll add something and make the open-source engine work mostly, but as a less-reliable system with fewer features.
.NET move was a pretty good move for MS.
And they aren't going to get MS sorts using it (even ignoring the pre-installed issue that beat even Netscape's best efforts), because MS put lots of money, time, and talent into their own VM, and the GNU one just ain't gonna be significantly better any time soon.
The
May we never see th
It essentially means they wrote the compiler in C, and didn't write the compiler in C#, just to paint themselves in the corner and have a chicken and egg problem on how to compile a compiler written in C# if you don't have a C# compiler. I thought this was kind of odd myself, seems like a pat on the back for not doing something stupid, unless someone could point me to some need to compile a compiler in it's native language.
gcc itself has a bootstrap problem. The gcc code itself is actually pretty gcc specific, non-standard C code that can't be directly compiled correctly by other compilers. So there's an extra step, the gcc build routne adds a bootstrap compiler - youdon't compile the real compiler directly, you compile a small 'gcc-ish' compiler that though not complete, has a sufficent enough subset of gcc-isms to compile the real compiler.
"I'm not sure why so many man months were spent trying to hook into .NET. Couldn't we have spent more time refining the applications, utilities, and system code that we already have rather than wasting time extending the Microsoft monopoly?"
Alternative C# compilers have the potential to undermine rather than extend the MS monopoly, simply because they are an alternative source for a C# platform.
The real trick would be getting C# programmers in the habit of targeting just the ECMA standard rather than the standard + MS lock-in extensions.
Get the release and report bugs if you can find !
PS: assigning them to me does not count as funQuidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
I guess I have some rather severe misgivings about this - how useful is this going to be given the lack of the proprietary MS libraries that you are going to need to run real-world applications, or move code in a portable fashion from one machine to another?
It's nice to have something like a this in the free software regime from a technical perspective, but is it really ever going to be anything but a little sister to the Microsoft version? Won't that reality diminish the corporate view that Linux is really just a hacker's toy, and if you want the real thing get Windows?
Interoperability and portability are good, but interoperability really occurs at the protocol level, and portability requires libraries.
I can see this resulting in are misleading market claims from Microsoft saying things like Lookie Here C# code is portable just like Java code !!
One good thing that could come out of this is that it might force Sun to loosen it's grip on Java a bit so that we get more serious open JVM's etc.
Very robust and well thought out language. Yes, Yes, I know blah blah blah M$ this and M$ that. But ya know what? I could give a flying crap about everyone's predisposition against Microsoft.
.NET -- not it's Windows-specific libraries.
I'm not sure Microsoft should be thanked for the greatness of the C# language on it's own, which I'm sure most of us agree is the best thing of
Thank Anders Hejlsberg, chief architect of the C# language, instead.
While I'm on the topic...
Anders Hejlsberg interviewed about C# #1
Anders Hejlsberg interviewed about C# #2
Pretty interesting, where he discuss the design goals of C#, how satisfied he is with what C# became, etc.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
This is an interesing development. However: I wonder how useful this language is on non-windows platforms. Let me explain.
You see, I have just started a new job that is heavily leveraging the
If you haven't written JScript, VBScript, or WSHScript, you have no idea just how amazingly powerful this is. A database connection & query takes around 4 lines of code. I was able to master in-code LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, aka Active Directory on Windoze boxes) queries in less than one day, having never touched an LDAP server in my life prior to that.
.GNU project aims to bring ActiveX functionality over to *NIX, and port all of the cool ActiveX objects like ADO (Database), DOM (XML), System.DirectoryServices (LDAP), FSO (Files), etc.
Sadly, *NIX has never really implimented anything like COM. Each programming language still has to be manually extended in some form or another to recognise new APIs -- headers for compiled languages (and remembering to link to the libraries), or worse, "extension agent" coding for dynamic languages like Perl and Python (assuming the API code is a binary shared library). And APIs are almost never identical accross multiple languages.
So, really: what is the need for C# on *NIX? None of my c# code that I am writing will port, because it is heavily dependent on the COM/ActiveX objects to get the real work done. Unless the
Is thes even feasible to do?
Now I see an article praising those who work hard to let Microsoft's .NET succeed.
.NET has a nicelely laid out set of classes, though you may not like it, some people are really productive with them
.NET or kids learning C# in college as "the language".
1) The language and the technology may be good.
2) Creates more choice for the programmer.
3) Will have support (from Microsoft, so companies will demand it)
4) Will be known to many developers, that will expect C# support. Probably, you couldn't care less, but let's not forget some Windows apps are most desired under Linux or any os.
5) Nobody is talking about taking away options
6)
The things that I don't like are the suit fear, or bad moves that Microsoft may have in mind to leverage they IP on their
unfinished: (adj.)
One thing you didn't mention though is Web Applications which, though you may argue are no big deal, I would argue at least a 10-15% of the development going on centers around. A super set of that is B2B applications which probably account for 25-33% of the development going on. C # and Java are way better suited for web development and B2B development and have established frameworks to springboard from.
I understand about your frustrations with the fickleness of the /. crowd, but the excitement here is the choice to _not_ extend the monopoly. By creating a C# compiler, libraries, etc Portable.NET and Mono are allowing developers to not use Microsoft tools or Microsoft OS's to generate useful code. Yes MS created C#, but you don't have to use anything MS owned or controlled to use it. If it doesn't exist already, I wouldn't be surprised if there is an apache mod_aspx/C# in the works. People assume that because MS created it, it has to be bad and unusable by the OSS crowd. It's really not the case...
now to quote a reply I've seen to a comment like yours before:
Why do I need C, I can use assembly. :-)
Why do I need assembly, I can just type in 1's and 0's.
etc
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Nope.
.NET always faster then java if implemented properly on intel architecture. It is the fact that it is a little endian standard while java is big endian. Assuming everything else equal .NET will always win. That is besides the fact that many third llparty developers will actually prefer to deal with an ECMA standard language then with a Sun standard.
.NET. Sink Java. And so far it is proceeding very well on target and on schedule with the help of the GNU community. Nothing bad about it, I hate java so any means of killing it should be cherished and supported. The problem is that after sinking java MSFT can deal with competitors on their own turf exactly as you describe and we will be back to square one where we began. To perl and python as the only "portable" languages.
First, they are trying to do a full ECMA certification for NET and make it standard. In order to do what you are saying they will have to withdraw from the certification standard which immediately gives them a serious disadvantage in the war against java which is what this shit is about.
Second, deciding to apply for the certification process they have taken into account that making the language a standard will create alternative implementations. Not just GNU. There will be commercial ones as well. And that is the idea. Because there is something that makes
This is the idea of
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
In comparison, Sun has granted the Apache and all open source developers FULL access to the specs, test kits and granted the full rights to develop competing products under the JSPA. Sun mhas also fully opened up the Java development standards process under the new Java Community Process (JCP).
There those that claim that .NET is open to re-implementation, but until Microsoft make a simliar public legal declaration to Sun's JSPA, any .NET reimplementation represents a pending legal mindfield.
This is all true, but right now people who choose to help or participate in the DotGNU/Portable.NET project are precluded from participating in mono-hackers which is the mailing list devoted to technical discussions about Mono. That is a clear limit placed upon the Mono project because of it's affiliation with Ximian. Miguel does not want Mono developers who are also affiliated with Portable.NET on the mono-hackers list because of confidential information relating to contracts Ximian has, or will have, with various groups. This limits Mono developers, who are also interested in Portable.NET, from contributing to technical discussions about Mono.
The C programming language does everything I need it to do.
I too once was a C zealot. Then I had a job at Compaq which required me to develop in TCL which I hated at first, but eventually it opened my eyes a lot.
These days I do 90% of my work in python, it's a bloody great language. I remember when I first started hacking C about a decade ago, I'd pump out these little programs quite quickly but anything large took a lot of time, usually debugging. I never got tierd of C but I suppose when I started programming professionally it lost a lot of its appeal.
Anyway, I diverge.
Python lets me create complex systems very fast. The first time I used python I worte a client/server chat program, it took about half a day to do (including the basic python tutorial). I find I don't have the time to fuck around with C anymore, I don't find the joy in hunting down bugs either (at least I hunt less in python).
I still use C on occasion though. But only then I can't do it fast enough in python, the C code is still usually ran from python in the end.
He who defends everything, defends nothing. -- Fredrick The Great
cant_get_a_good_nick wrote:
n ium/mgoals.html).
.Net runtime). Install it, or let it install itself, and you will be making regular payments to Microsoft if you ever want to use your computer again.
.Net is available for Windows, and well on its way for Linux and OS X. Longhorn may well be Millennium.
> thinking Microsoft would have to wait until 2002
> for a cross platform threat...
No, they had to wait until they had a Java-a-like that they could control, and a bunch of silly collaborators to port it to anything in sight for them. Convincing the world to make regular payments for the continuing use of their products, as opposed to one charge up front would also be a big help.
Then they can pull out the operating system Microsoft Research has been sitting on since the late 1990's. The operating system that is platform independent and runs on top of their Java replacement. The operating system that will swallow the internet into a single giant distributed network under their control, giving them the 100% monopoly of their wildest dreams. The operating system called Millennium (http://research.microsoft.com/research/sn/Millen
With per use charging, the OS itself could be given away on CD ala AOL, made available for free download, and/or automatically installed on XP machines via Windows Update (gee, I hope you didn't install XP Service Pack 1 which includes permission for them to do this and the
I don't think we have too long to wait.
Mind you, this is a giant gamble on Microsoft's part, and they are as likely to get nuked (figuratively, or even literally if a foreign country gets too annoyed with Microsoft's attempt to take over their country's computers) as they are likely to succeed. I don't think the company would survive a stunt like this, but they survived Bob, the antitrust trial's joke of a penalty phase, and Licensing 6.
This isn't a case of poor misunderstood Microsoft, either. Why else would they codename the original Millennium JVM "Borg" (http://research.microsoft.com/research/sn/)?
Shinoda: "The age of Millennium."
Io: "What does that mean?"
Shinoda: "A thousand year kingdom. It wants to create a home for itself. There is one flaw in its plan: Godzilla."
"Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
This place is really getting full of M$ trolls.
.NET$ "innovation". Bill and his buffoons must be smoking a big fat one with a smile now.... And we are even lighting it for them...
.NET vital infrastructure source code real soon now, since we are so nice in contributing to the hype and fud ourselves. And of course, there is no way in hell Bill will pollute his own spec just for our own good and for the sake of his own pocket... Noooooo, of course not!
.NET$ aberration and you will be the one laughing, not Bill and his monkeys.
Dont you all see the pattern here? Oh geez, let's all begin developping using this so neat C$ language and let's contribute to this so great
The trap is set, and we are happily jumping on the trigger using both feet. Of course, Bill will help us out by releasing his
During this time, Java continues to die slowly, getting fewer and fewer developpers. Don't you realize that we are contributing in digging our own grave?
Java might be not so great, but it is still the only true alternative to this M$ obscenity.
Please people, read the J2EE spec, the Java language spec., and go play with JBoss for a while... Then, come back, and take another look at this
Wake up people!
Zruty
Zruty -- Ruler of Zrutland
I have a very hard time coding in C. It's not that I don't know the language. I can write anything in C, and write it well. But it takes so much work! Writing C code which is clean, modular, reusable, robust, and maintainable is a pain, if not a flat out contradiction in terms. If forced to use C, I would basically end up emulating all of the features of C++ using macros and redundant code.
:)
As a matter of fact, one of my favorite programming techniques is impossible in C. I like to use reference counted smart pointers to handle memory management automatically. However, in C, there is no way to automate that -- you would have to manually call some sort of functions which increment and decrement the reference count, which defeats most of the purpose.
If I were writing an operating system, I would probably choose C. But a desktop environment? A game? I've worked on my own game engine (see my homepage), and the thought of trying to do it all in C makes me cringe. You might not agree, but I think you just don't know what you are missing.
I am actually now designing my own programming language. In my language, I have been able to write an IRC-like client/server chat program in 161 lines of code, and it would perform better than any but the most thoughfully designed C programs. Sure, you could write it in C, but why? Why spend days writing and debugging something that would take hours in another language?
Woohoo, I'm all psyched up to work on my compiler now. Time for a coding binge! Thanks!
This is wrong, or at least highly misleading. Sun has granted rights only to standard developed under the JCP from here on forward (and then only to participants in the JCP):
Sun has hundreds of patents on core Java technologies that are unrelated to JCP efforts, and Sun has granted no licenses to those. You would likely run into those if you tried to create an independent Java implementation.
Both C#/CLI and Java/JVM should be considered proprietary platforms covered by numerous patents. And both Sun and Microsoft have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted on intellectual property issues or commitments to open standards.
There are plenty of high quality, truly open languages and runtimes out there. Open source software developers are fools to waste any time on either C# or Java until Microsoft and/or Sun make binding commitments to make those platforms truly open.
I've yet to see anyone address this point, which must be made. I'm not sure what that "remoting and web service architecture" is. I don't know. But I damn know one thing: in three or four years Microsoft will obsolete that technology, and it will be replaced with something else.
Microsoft receives significant revenue from training armies of MCSE, using endless arrays of certifications and development programs. And, as such, they have a vested interest in keeping the revenue alive with what I call a "steady technology churn." They can't just pick an API, and go with it for the long term future. They need to force all the MCSEs back into the training camps, in order to make sure that their paper certifications do not expire.
I dabbled with some Windows programming, many years ago. You wanna know one thing? Nothing that I've learned back then is worth today any more than a hair on my ass. VBX controls, DAOs, all of that has long been made obsolete. I've done _nix programming for quite sometime before trying the Windows waters, but I quickly figured out what was going on: that the primary occupation of a Windows developer is to provide revenue to Microsoft, in terms of continuing MSDN subscriptions, fees for an endless stream of documentation for Application Interface Of The Year.
"Developers, developers, developers", indeed...
So I quickly ended that short term experiment, and went back to hacking _nix. The thing about _nix -- which is 180 degrees opposite of Windows programming -- is that the skills and the knowledge that you've learned ten or fifteen years ago is still used, and is as valid today as it was back then. If you go and learn today's crop of Windows APIs, in just a couple of years all the time you've spent today would be a complete and a total waste of time, because nothing that you've learned now is relevant any more, it's been obsoleted.
On the other hand, things like file descriptors, pipes, sockets, and other basic POSIX APIs will still be just as useful ten years from now as they are today, and as they were ten years ago. That is not to say that you won't learn anything new in the mean time. On the contrary, I have learned many great _nix technologies over the years, and I'm sure that I'll keep learning more exciting stuff in the years to come.
The key difference is that everything that I will learn will only complement, enrich, and add to my existing, growing base of knowledge. Unlike with Windows, where its only purpose would be to replace stuff that's been obsoleted by Microsoft. As a Windows programmer, I'm in for a lifetime's worth of a struggle to keep churning through one API after another, one Microsoft language, or library, or interface API after another, all while being milked by Microsoft for the training and development fees in the mean time. As a _nix programmer, I'm in for a lifetime of enrichment and expansion of my technical skills and knowledge.