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Mono Ships ASP.NET server
Miguel de Icaza writes "We have just released the new version of Mono the new version includes a working version of ASP.NET. The release includes a sample web server that "hosts" the ASP.NET runtime (it can be hosted anywhere, for instance in Apache, with mod_haydn). The web features of ASP.NET would not be very useful without the support of a backing database. The new version of Mono includes database providers for Oracle, MS SQL, Sybase, ODBC, OleDB, Gnome Data Access, SqLite, MySQL and of course, Postgres. The C# compiler is now 37% faster due to some nice optimizations on the JIT engine and in our class libraries. You can use it to develop GUI applications using Gtk#. Screenshots for mPhoto and the GUI debugger (which can debug both JITed apps and native applications). "
The volume of database providers in this release is the work of very few but very active hackers: Brian, Dan, Rodrigo, Tim and Ville. It is amazing the amount of code that these hackers pulled in the last two months.
It is easy to know when the System.Data hackers are working, your inbox gets hammered with patches from the mono-patches list.
You can help us support DB2, but you will have to get your hands dirty and start coding like the crazy hackers that brought all these providers (and Reggie has agreed to contribute his optimized provider as well).
Well, having ASP.NET is very convenient to move applications and components from Windows and deploy them on Linux or Unix systems. So I think that this is a plus on its own.
.NET offer a very interesting crossroads: the possibility of sharing components and existing classes independently of the language that was used to create it.
In terms of choices, I have to admit that I personally am more of an old school strongly-typed kind of person, and I like programming more with a language that I understand like C#. There is nothing wrong with PHP or Perl, but I feel a bit insecure with them. Like when you have to order water in a restaurant, and you do not want to look cheap, so you end up asking for `bottled water' even when you are trying to not spend a lot of money [1].
Mono and
I strongly believe that scripting languages are great for quickly building web solutions, and I would love to see more work between the PHP (and other scripting communities) and Mono. We are certainly interested in helping out.
For instance, the Mono runtime is easily embeddable, it could be used in existing systems with ease: for example, allow any language but use the PHP API to write web pages is one option (check the link for a few more samples and the tutorials), or hosting any programming language on Apache (as its done with the Apache/Mono module mod_haydn.
Miguel.
[1] Although as you grow older, you become more cynical, and you just tell the waiter `Get me a glass of the cheapest form of water you have'.
Good thing a:
If we can get a better "forms" implementation on 'nix (windows-like without windows bugs), that would be awesome
Secondly, but verrry important to those who do webhosting, clients requesting ASP pages would be able to run on 'nix servers, no longer requiring special windows dedicated hosts. For those who prefer 'nix servers, and many hosts do, running a windows server in the bunch is a pain in the butt!
If this actually pulls through, I will be amoung many who are very, very impressed.