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New Mono Roadmap, DotGNU 0.1 On CD
msh104 writes "The Mono project just released a nice status update for Mono. They also preview a roadmap for what the future will be like. It's quite nice to read if you want to find out if writing .Net programs for Linux will have a future for you. The Mono roadmap is available here." And gibbon writes "The DotGNU Project announced the availability of the DotGNU 0.1 CD-ROM release.
It runs on many platforms and the CD contains documentation, packages for GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and MS Windows.
It is now possible to use the base class libraries and XML. System.Windows.Forms and the web services are coming along well, too. The announcement contains more information and download links."
I work for a large IT consultancy and we have a number of high-profile projects in the .NET stream. So yes, there is a market for it currently. In the future... who knows. But .NET is the sort of thing M$ is not going to let go off easily. They'll put a lot of money behind it, in marketting, development, etc. So in practice, even if it was a really crappy product, all that money behind it would make it a reality. I don't like .NET, but I would bank on it surviving for quite a few years.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
I'm asking this half sarcastically and half seriously.
.NET and why would we expect Micro$oft to NOT shut Mono down cold if it goes anywhere so it becomes a threat to them?
Could someone please explain to me: Isn't Mono basically an open source
I want to know why GNU net has support for forms but mono does not?
Anyone know of a good ide for GNUnet or Mono.
Emacs does not count.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
[Warning: I'm just guessing there, I don't have Mono running on my compy right now]
;) ]
IF your CLI supports System.Xml and System.Windows.Forms, then MAYBE SharpDevelop will run on your computer.
I tried it once using the early 1.0 framework, worked nice, a bit clunky if you are used to vs.net but then again SharpDev was an alpha OSS tool back then [now I gather it's a beta OSS IDE
Please feel free to flame me to death for my ignorance or just post a 'WFM'.
Or do I need to download special drivers, or windows drivers/dlls, etc??
Suppose, I am starting a new project destined to change the world. .NET if I can be reasonably sure that those 5% of my potential users who do not run Windows on their desktop will still be able to run my application.
It is definitely going to be thick-client-based one. I would consider
If Windows.Forms will not be usable in Mono, this does not sound like much of an option and I would be better off with Java/Swing (as lead-footed as it is).
I read the roadmap things but it is still not clear to me if Windows.Forms is going to be more mature (implement more of the Microsoft namespaces correctly) in the future.
Has anyone summarized the similarities and differences between Mono and DotGNU? Do we see another KDE/GNOME style split here? Why don't these projects merge?
Microsoft is gradually moving almost their entire product line to managed code (.Net). So yes, anything to do with Windows will have to be .Net in a few years time.
why doesnt .gnu join mono?!?!
If one can say that there are two successful component-software frameworks out there, they would have to be Java and ActiveX. Java is single-language and multi-platform, but multi-platform in that one is running the Java platform under all the different OS's. ActiveX is, unfortunately single platform (Windows), but it is really, truly, multi-language (besides Visual Basic, there is Delphi, C++/MFC, the scripting languages, Matlab, VS.NET hosts ActiveX controls quite well, thank you, and yes, even Java SWT that supports it in one form or another). It is multi-language in a sense that .NET isn't (really syntax skins over CLR-compatible languages).
With ActiveX, you have two things going on: pure COM objects and then ActiveX objects proper. COM is kind of like Mono/.NET without Windows.Forms, and ActiveX is like Windows.Forms. In fact, ActiveX support under .NET is integrated into Windows.Forms. COM is simple enough and clean enough that you could really have COM across platform. ActiveX tries mightily to hide it, but it really has the Windows handle and API behind it, and is the thing that ties you down to Windows.
Now Windows.Forms does have a clean, generic GUI API that could be ported to other systems, but on the other hand, it exposes both Window handle and displace context (DC). Not only that, all of the Longhorn revelations suggests that Microsoft plans to ditch Windows.Forms and move to something else.
Leaving out all the worries about patents and Microsoft behavior and all that, for Mono to succeed, it has to do more than just the COM part to .NET, it has to do an ActiveX-like part as well. As a Windows-constrained person, I see Windows.Forms as a waste of time because 1) ActiveX not only works with .NET quite well but it works with the legacy Windows stuff (VB 6 and all the sundry Web pages and scripting languages), and 2) it looks like Windows.Forms is going to be superceded by something else.
Windows.Forms components are only a little bit easier to use than ActiveX, and they are sure a heck of a lot easier to develop than ActiveX (don't get me started about IDispatch, QueryInterface, Automation data types, IDL, and type-library generation and maintenance). But for all its warts, ActiveX generated a whole lot of buzz. Matlab is cross platform, but the Windows version supports it. Data Translation supplies A/D card controller widgets in it. Eclipse Java-SWT supports it (again, only on Windows). Where's the buzz with Windows.Forms? Is Matlab rushing to come out with a version to host Windows.Forms widgets? Is Data Translation coming out with .NET native widgets for their A/D cards? Eclipse-SWT already supports Windows so it doesn't need to host Windows.Forms.
If I as a Windows developer think Windows.Forms is a waste of time (no future to putting a lot of work porting and polishing a GUI component library into Windows.Forms), perhaps Mono should invent its own GUI framework and try to beat MS to the punch regarding whatever MS has up its sleeve.
Windows.Forms does not have this big mass of reusable component software or people falling over themselves to make containers to host it, and I don't think it ever will -- it looks like a bride until Microsoft makes up its mind. If I could pick a direction, I would suggest cloning the Eclipse SWT API, and teaming up with the Eclipse people to agree on extension.
For this purpose Ximian insisted thateveryone either contribute with an X11 license or GPL under (C) Ximian.com. Which is not wholly acceptable to FSF (who sponsors DotGNU).....
It isn't like it's a Gnome-KDE war. Portable.net has re-licensed their I18N (ie those damed CJK decoder/encoders) for use for Mono by relicensing it to X11 (to suit Miguel's "sell" aims). Portable.net has also taken some off mono, the most prominent of it will be ml-pnet , which will allow people to use Mono Libs (eg ADO.net) with Pnet. Unfortunately very few of those initiatives come from Mono end of things, maybe they don't want to attract attention to competition.
The real breaking point is the WinForms fiasco. DotGNU and Mono had formally agreed to co-operate on Winforms and Ximian officially pulled the carpet from under their Winforms project. Also what they had was a VM that ran under Wine and used MFC like it would on Win32 . Of course they were focussing mainly on Gtk# and Winforms would have affected the marketability of that. But would they do something like that ? . Failed promises and the Novell acquisition have reduced trust as now it's not one freesoftware developer to another but one corporation to a free software developer. Of course no-one wants another SCO-like copyright war.
ps: Visit this link -- Qt and Gtk windows running under the same parent window (DotGNU'll solve the Qt-Gnome widget war... to primetime !
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;-)
And by the way, MS (Balmer) has clearly said "we will not port dotNet to a non MS OS".
The only interest into a mono platform would be if it is done by MS because it will ensure compatibility with the orriginal (ie a port and not a rewrite !).
But MS will not do it, just because it will advertise open OS and will weaken their own OS. Hence dotNet will remain proprietary.
This lead me to a question
Do you think that dotNet will be drop of by MS as a separate viable platform (independent from their home OS solution) ? or do you think they will make it cross platform ready finaly ?
IMHO, money has always rules the world, and here money say : "Who care a b*ll about dotNet as a separate Platform ? Boy, what something that works on Windows, u got VS ! want something that is cross platform, u got Java ! So why betting bucks on those things that might disapeared in a year or two as MS DNA did before
Just a good question IMHO.
With better enterprise solutions build each days (thanks to opensources teams around Linux & J2EE ), MS got headaches for years, poor guys
So yes, anything to do with Windows will have to be .Net in a few years time.
This is very unlikely. Windows is going to have to support non-.Net legacy applications for the indefinite future.
.Net on Linux is always going to lag behind .Net on Windows. Linux is a dominant presence in the server market, yet the aspects of .Net that Mono suggest they are least likely to implement are the enterprise server features, so only the client-side features of .Net are likely to be anywhere near complete.
There is a language and system already available on almost every platform that has complete client and enterprise features and open source versions (GCJ, Kaffe) - its called Java.
So why bother?
Actually, there are a number of companies writing pro-level software using .NET. Jack Henry and Associates count? I certainly wouldn't consider them a "hobby" group or their software "hobby projects" and yet they are moving all of their major software to the .NET platform.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
But other MS techs have been forgotten etc - DNA, COM, etc...