Mono 1.0-beta3 Released

steve_deobald writes "The Mono team just released Beta 3, the final beta before we see the 1.0 release candidate and final. Binary packages can be had for Red Hat, Fedora, and SuSE. Although not officially released, the new website is up and running. Also of note, MonoDevelop 0.4 was recently released, and has RPMs available for the first time."

Comments

A great achievement

[vbweenie]

I think Miguel's made a great play for the future of applications development on the Linux platform and I hope it pays off. Anything to wean Linux developers off C/++ (not kernel developers, obviously...). The only other project that shows anything like the same promise, IMHO, is Parrot and the great assortment of "dynamic" languages that are being ported to it.

Let a thousand flowers bloom!

Contrats to the Mono team

[nelsonal]

A year ago in January I brought Mono up to MS execs who were talking about the portability of .NET (except to Linux) and they stated point blank that the project would never finish. Good on all of you.

Re:Contrats to the Mono team

[The Bungi]

The core product groups never doubted for a second that Miguel would pull it off, mainly because Don Box and other architects working on .NET told them he would after they looked at the first alpha.

There might be some "static" coming from the evangelism or strategy folks; I don't know. My perception of this is mostly positive.

Microsoft, believe it or not, is happy (at least at that level) that Mono exists. There is nothing like having one of the main figures in open source sit down and implement a technology they opened. And I don't mean that with an evil or snickery undertone (and they don't, either) - they like it, just as they like all the SSCLI initiatives people have started to do since they released it.

They've learned that you can be successful without closing up the specs, and those of us who write software for Windows for a living have benefited greatly from this.

If Mono does nothing else it has already succeeded as far as I'm concerned. Microsoft has changed enormously since .NET was released.

Re:Contrats to the Mono team

[bay43270]

On the other hand, it's important to distinguish between a language and an API.

Microsoft has released both the language and the core APIs as standards. 'Core' doesn't include winforms, but that's what gtk# is for.

explain Mono

[acomj]

I've visited the website..
I can't figure out if mono is.

1) A c# compiler? (bytecode??)
2) A api library the is kinda like MS C# libraries
3) An api library that had been developed from scratch.

Or any combination of the above.

Does it compile and run native or does it use bytecode like java?
Can I build cross platform apps in it? (like java was supposed to be)

I'm looking for a cross platform application building toolkit. I run OSX and linux.QT/GTK and C are some options I'm looking at, so far it looks like java/eclipse is the way I'm leaning, but this looked interesting and worth considering.

Re:explain Mono

[genneth]

It's the .NET framework, but cross platform. It currently consists mainly of a C# compiler and the .NET framework libraries. Several GNOME related libaries (think GTK+) have had bindings made for it.

Re:explain Mono

[Anonymous Coward]

Mono is a disease.

GCJ is the cure.

Re:explain Mono

[386spart]

I can't figure out if mono is...[cut]

Excellent! It is meant to be a OSS version of .net, which nobody understood what the heck it was either. (MS representatives tried to explain it for months).

This means Mono is a success! ;-)

I hate to say it

[Anonymous Coward]

I see no measurable benefit of .NET vs J2EE. since I use and develop with both, I can say with all honesty it's a matter of preference. If someone wants to build GUI's but doesn't want to go to all the trouble of implementing custom tableModel, and treeModels, then .NET forms is easier. Of course that means your apps will look like everyone else's and reduces your competative advantage. If you prefer to code custom GUI's then you're better off using something like C++, QT, SWT or any other GUI package. On the serverside, I find .NET inadequate and the threading model inappropriate. Having to manually manage threads and constantly do callWait is not a good way to build scalable server applications. But that's from first hand experience. If I had to build server apps in .NET, I would rather do it C++ and not C#.

Re:I'm tired of this Mono nonsense

[The Bungi]

Because Sun could sue the pants off everyone who has ever even remotely considered doing a JVM implementation if they chose to.

This is the great stupidity of people who moan and bitch about how Mono is evil and then in the same breath recommend just using Java. C# and .NET are actually more "open" than Java for all practical purposes.

I'd suggest you read the Mono FAQ and the various blogs (Havoc Pennington, Miguel, Nat and some GNOME hackers) that discuss this, and then make up your mind instead of just parroting what you've read here. Especially here.

This bi-monthly "OMFG .NET is teh dumb and M$ is teh evilz and why dont we do teh JAVA instead!!1!" diatribe posted to every Mono release announcement is becoming very tiresome.

Portable.NET

[Anonymous Coward]

For all of you talking about winforms, Portable.NET has a beautifully portable version of winforms, and its soon to get a kick in the pants with native theming support to really open some eyes.

http://216.58.40.193/qtwinforms2.jpg

Re:Not true

[The Bungi]

Point me to the ECMA spec.

If Microsoft had "opened" C# and the CLI the way Sun "opened" Java and Java happened to be an ECMA standard (or fall under any other independent body) you'd probably be asking me for the same thing. Java is not an independent thing. It is closely controlled by Sun. They giveth and taketh away as they choose.

And you're seriously mistaken if you think Sun can't take legal action against anyone for any reason over anything related to Java.

That they won't is another matter. But then that's exactly the point I'm making WRT Mono and Microsoft.