Novell Presents Mono Roadmap

H0ek writes "Seems Mono is still moving along in spite of the Novell purchase. They present a nicely comprehensive roadmap. You can read the official Novell press release if you're into that kind of nonsense. All I can say is, go Miguel! Don't let the Man get you down!"

Comments

Is Mono a death threat to Microsoft?

[Captain Kirk]

If I understand this Cringely article correctly, .Net will make Microsoft hardware independent - I, Cringely

All of the MS products are being rewritten to be based on .Net. ISVs are being pushed towards .Net. In the case of VB developers, they simply don;t have a choice. For C++ developers, MS is constantly selling us the manageed C++ mantra. Even game developers are getting the .NEt pitch.

If Mono works, then Microsofts own products, those of independent system developers and popular games will all be just as good on Linux, OSX, etc. as they will be on Windows. That should make MS very nervous. Go Miguel!

Re:Is Mono a death threat to Microsoft?

[4of12]

If Mono works, then Microsofts own products, those of independent system developers and popular games will all be just as good on Linux, OSX, etc. as they will be on Windows. That should make MS very nervous.

As nice as the potential technology is behind .NET and Mono might be, I tend to be more worried that the interfaces to heavily-used class libraries and components will not be sufficiently specified. That is, not all of the behavior will be replicated if you simply drag `n drop your Visual developed application from the latest Longhorn server over to a cheap Linux box. Does that even happen in the Java world, where cross-platform portability is constantly trumpeted?

Differentiating themselves from commodity Linux platforms and leveraging their strength in Windows seems to be more consistent with Microsoft's business objectives.

Re:Is Mono a death threat to Microsoft?

[dthable]

Does that even happen in the Java world, where cross-platform portability is constantly trumpeted?

It still exists if you just want to stick to the base functionality. The problem becomes the limited amount of control you have over your applications look and feel. To really leverage that functionality, you need to get down and dirty with the operating system.

It still can be done (i.e. QT), but takes a huge amount of developer effort and time.

Hate to beat a dead horse, but....

[Captain Rotundo]

I hold no ill will toward Ximian or Miguel, they have done great things, but I still am completely unconvinced by Mono.

I've used Mono a little (Dashboard and others) and qutie frankly I am not impressed with C#, and I am not convinced of the "common language" nonsense. What does strike me is how it seems no different or better than the technology Java introduced years ago. Add to that the fact that I don't think anyone can successfully play catchup with MS, and that I think MS patent lawyers will pounce the second Mono looks credible to a .Net or C# developer.

Why not re-implement a Free Java clone with the same resources. Java is more 'open' (maybe not officially with standards but in practice for sure) Java is here NOW, and Java has developers now. Not to mention the stigma of cloning MS wouldn't be there to scare away people like me. - Not to mention the things in .Net that are very windows specific that it is either hard or useless to port to a different platform (who wants a VM language that requires a windows emulator to run? why not just write a windows program and use full on Wine at that point?)

I really hope Mono becomes something great, but I simply don't want to invest my time in a platform that appears will remain a bastard step-son to .Net for the foreseeable future. On the other hand Sun seems to have an interrest in a GNU/Linux desktop at this point, and may be coming around to wanting a full fledged java platform on Linux.

Re:Hate to beat a dead horse, but....

[DukeyToo]

.NET is very Windows-UNspecific, not at all what you would expect from MS. It has some Microsoft specific stuff, (eg. accessing windows registry) but that is generally relegated to a separate "Microsoft" namespace.

In addition, you seem to think that .NET is all about Windows Forms. It is not. For me, that is the least interesting aspect. You can write console applications, or server deamons, or web services, or DLLs for re-use by multiple UIs.

Like Java, C# is here NOW, and C# developers are here now. As are VB.NET developers, as fast as they can convince their management to change. As a platform, .NET has a large amount of support, from the people who write software for Microsoft platforms. I assure you, there are very many.

For myself, I develop specifically for Windows, and .NET has to be very important to my career. And Mono is too, because it opens up a whole new market for my MS-centric skills - suddenly, I have a chance of telling management that they are no longer tied to MS because their business relies on my Windows program. And that is very exciting.

If you are a Java specialist, there is really no need to stray, for now. However, Microsoft will do everything it can to make it easier and easier for you to migrate your skills to .NET, and at some point in the future it may become worth your while.

Re:Hate to beat a dead horse, but....

[Captain Rotundo]

You made my point exactly. Your interrested in .Net because your a windows developer. There is no compeling reason to be interrested in .Net if you are not tied to the Microsoft platform.

Re:So... what's the deal?

[DukeyToo]

ASP.NET is definitely ahead of vanilla ASP. It has separated code from display, which is good. It has also added web controls, which are very very powerful. It is also (mostly) compiled, which adds speed.

However, it is still lacking in several areas:
* lack of built-in page templating mechanism
* datagrids are latebound (and possibly interpreted)
* CSS support in Visual Studio is abysmal
* the style of ASP.NET is "lots of custom pages" - it does not encourage large maintainable web sites.

All in all, it is very "VB" - nice and easy to create something simple, but it takes some ingenuity to create a larger, maintainable product.

Re:Microsoft does not like Mono or Linux

[zero_offset]

What surprises me is not that they sent you packing, but rather that it surprises you (apparently), and that you even bothered to try. Why in the world would you have expected Microsoft to greet a Linux-based company with enthusiasm, regardless of what you're making/selling/proposing/etc...?

Re:Java is not open!

[mcbevin]

If Java is 'useless for complex applications' without EJB, then I'd say Java is pretty much useless based on my experiences with EJB. Luckily however, theres also a thing called JDO which does what EJBs should do, but a lot better and simpler.

To answer those that say C# is no better than Java, I'd personally choose developing a GUI with C# + Visual Studio over Swing any day. C#'s XML handling I also find a lot nicer that any of the DOM/JAXB etc alternatives available with Java. And C#s auto-boxing and unboxing also relieves some Java-annoyance. Theres three rather improvements which have impressed me, but there are also others :).

As a language I find C# has a few such nice improvements on Java with very few drawbacks. This has to be of course balanced with the fact that Java is a lot more mature (i.e. theres a lot more tools out there that use Java) and is not Microsoft controlled.

Also, look out for future versions of both languages. Java 1.5 is including some really nice improvements (i.e. generics for one), as is the next .NET version. Nothing wrong with a bit of choice and competition :).