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Mono and dotGnu: What's the Point?
joeykiller writes "The Register features an opinion by Neil Davidson, asking 'Mono and dotGnu: What's the point?' Some of the points he raises may seem irrelevant for open source supporters (like why make a C# compiler while Microsoft's is free anyway), but others are thought provoking and maybe a little bit controversial. You may not agree with his opinions, but it's an interesting read anyway."
Last I knew, the .NET framework was only available for Win32 and FreeBSD. Has this changed recently? I dont really see a problem with Mono. If they can make it so that System.Forms works with GTK/Qt, that would be rather nice. I would imagine this would lead to tons of portable apps. Of course .. Maybe i dont understand .NET
Right after we see the releases of Duke Nukem Forever and Doom III.
... doesnt always mean it makes sense from a resource point of view or from "the big picture". But that is the price with people giving up their own time.
I, myself, am happy to have the chance to sample some of this work for free. Who am I to judge since I'm not paying?
As a .NET developer, frankly, I don't care what the motivations of Mono develoers or dotGnu developers are. Maybe I should be, but I'm not. I'm building an open source project in .NET and I want Linux, BSD and Mac OS X support (the latter two, hopefully with the help of SSCLI), and frankly, whatever other platforms I can include.
.NET is a really nice development environment. As much as I don't care for Microsoft, I have to admit that since I adopted C# about a year and a half ago, my production has roughly tripled, maybe more. I've never had ANY technology have that kind of impact on my development before, unless it was the reverse (making me 3 times LESS productive).
I don't want to use Java. First of all, I've never used it to develop software. Second of all, every user interface I've ever seen done with Java stinks. Maybe I've been seeing bad examples, but the windows, buttons, and other contols of the Java apps I've seen have an old fashion look and feel to me and I don't care for it. My personal opinion, but for me, that counts for something.
So, whatever the motivation of Mono or dotGnu, I simply want to develop my cross-platform C# apps. That's MY motivation, and that's what matters to me.
I thought it was supposed to be a GNU, not a YAK.
Putting the romance back into necromancer.
just now El Reg published some of the angry letters in defence of .GNU:
.GNU, just presenting a counterpoint.
http://theregister.co.uk/content/35/35557.html
not that i'm trying to defend
If Sun and Java die, MS will be free to add proprietary bits, and we'll still want a free version.
Also, although there are some nice things in C# (such as being able to work with arbitrary C pointers and data structures returned by C functions), we may want to tweak the design a little, or extend it to work with python or lisp or other languages. The idea of a "glue" language that can call routines written in many languages is very appealing. Sometimes you might want to have one program that can deal with low level data structs like C, handle resolution theorem proving like haskell, and maybe strings like snobol. With a good glue language, yuo could write each routine in its appropriate language, then glue them all together.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
It's a more established framework and a lot more cross-platform.
Well, J2ME seems to be the alternative choice for embedded apps, so I don't really see why not. It's not like they are going to implement an RTOS kernel in it. The point of these kind of managed code is to provide a sandbox for 3rd party apps to run on embedded devices, so they don't mess things up, and to provide a cross platform environment so app developers don't need (in theory at least) to have separate products for every single device out there. Sure it's slow, but it's also safe.
I think the real point that he's missing is that every project undertaken on Open Source that's a direct response to something that Microsoft is doing is a step in the direction of eliminating barriers to entry. Anything that can be done on an Open Source platform that could previously only have been done in a Closed Source environment is a good thing.
The language is an ECMA standard, but the runtime libraries are not. Without those, C# is pretty useless.
BTW, ECMA accepts all standards that companies care to pay for, they are hardly neutral.
I don't know why everyone in the open source community feels compelled in chasing behind Microsoft technologies, whether it be Mono or Wine. When I talk to people about the benefits of Linux and open source; I always seem to always mention Apache, Perl, and MySQL. I mention these products not because there based on or copied from Microsoft technology. It's because they are innovative open source projects. These open source projects do well not because there open source; but because there BETTER then there closed source counterparts.
.NET our own technologies, and make them BETTER then their closed-source counterparts. That's the only way we win. You cannot win a race by chasing your enemy. You must pull ahead.
We shouldn't lag behind and chase Microsoft's coattails. We should instead innovate; create our own
No Comment.
Like SharpDevelop for example?
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
I'll sum up the article: It'll be a really long an arduous task to be fully compatible with Microsoft's .Net stuff, so don't even try.
.Net and a X11 implementation of Windows.Forms, then the article might have a little more validity. At least then there would be a choice of OSes.
I'm sure Linus would have gotten the same sort of flack when making Linux. But he started the project, and look what it is becoming.
I think what the guy doesn't see is that not everyone 1) wants to program/compile on Windows (let alone whether they have a copy) and 2) wants to run this supposedly cross-platform language only on Windows.
It's okay to have dreams of bringing down a monopoly, but the point of an open source project is to have other options. Even if it is a long and arduous task, it still has merit, and should still be done, even if for just another option.
Now, if Microsoft makes a Linux compiler for
The grandparent is correct to complain that it is an unstable mix due to the fact that both Wine and Mono are under rapid, and asynchronous development.
About 6 months ago, when I gave up on using Mono for development, the Windows.Forms implementation required applying custom patches to a specific nightly build of Wine which was so old that Mono was the only place to get it from. So maybe if you were successful in getting your patch into the main Wine tree, and maybe after Wine matures a lot, Mono will be worth another look.
Also, I understand that the Mono team is aiming for complete compatibility, but I'd be tempted to declare that platform-specific hooks are unacceptable in a VM. After all, SWT seems to have achived fine graphics control with a much more abstract solution.
As for me, I think it's a cute project, but it's only use I see is cross-platform GUI applications. (a good thing for Linux adoption by the masses) And Mono is way off for doing that.
.Net.
.Net applications to Linux faster.
.net on Linux. I'm not gonna sit here and ponder the what ifs the article author ponders. He is just a troll seeking eyeballs and a clue.
And that "cute" use is enough to get Microsoft developers like myself actually interested in Linux development.
1. So Win32 developers can create applications in a high level environment similiar to Java on linux. Java is great. But so is
2. So we can port
I want to use c# and