Ars Technica Tours Mono

Kevin Francis writes "Over the coming weeks, Ars Technica will be taking a look at Mono, including a basic introduction to Mono, MonoDevelop, and C#, and then branching out to GTK#, database access, ASP.NET, advanced C# topics, and conclude with a discussion of the future of Mono, and the C# standard. All the examples will work on Windows and Linux, with OSX support coming shortly. Part 1 of the series is online now."

Comments

Will the coders use it though?

[garcia]

As you can clearly see, Mono brings almost limitless possibilities in breaking down the barrier between desktops: a commercial software provider would target Mono and it would "just work" on all platforms that Mono supported. How is this different from Java? In my opinion Java makes things harder than it needs to be. For starters, enforced exception handling can't auto-box/unbox primitive types and doesn't support arbitrary length parameter lists String.Format() style.

The framework of Mono provides the ability to make a very tedious task in C/C++ almost trivial in C#. As the above example, RegEx, shows, it helps the programmer concentrate on the program itself, rather than the logic supporting the code.

Yes, it is very exciting to have developers be able to easily write code that will work both on Linux, Windows, and OS X (obviously with the correct libraries) but will the coders utilize Mono when doing their work? Will they be concerned enough that Linux and OS X users are worthwhile supporting to make sure it is cross-platform?

Re:Will the coders use it though?

[Kithraya]

I certainly am. I am required to use C# in a Windows environment, and since I've discovered mono for my at-home-just-for-fun stuff, I'm able to leverage the experience and education from my day job. I find myself doing far more of this for-fun work in the linux environment now. For me, this has been the greatest boon of having mono, and hopefully other developers forced to work in Windows will also leverage mono to bring even more great software to other platforms.

Re:Will the coders use it though?

[caspper69]

I'll bite, even though you're an AC. You must understand that everything evolves in the computer world. We do not simply make new things up. The tools available at our disposal are the result of an evolutionary process that has gone on for 50+ years.

That being said, .NET is most certainly not any of those things you presented. .NET is the new version of Win32, which we all know, as a subsystem to a pretty amazing kernel (nt/2k/xp), really drags the entire system down. You should be excited that Linux is getting in on the ground floor of a fresh, robust, and USEFUL framework so early in the game. Heck, how many Windows apps are written in .NET right now? How many will be in 5-10 years? Exactly. How many years did it take to wean people from Win16? I can tell you that I still have a couple of apps that haven't migrated, and that it took a LOT of other apps more than 3-4 years after Windows 95 was released to make the switch.

The lesson? MS is going to win, because they have the advantage, at least on the desktop. Paradigm shifts (unix->dos->windows->linux) don't happen very often, and you need a lot of geurilla tactics to even have a fighting chance. The best thing I can see is to support .NET on both sides of the coin (hey, you'll soon even be able to throw OSX in there too), and in three or four years, when someone says: "I can't switch from Windows, because app X won't work, or is too slow through Wine," or blah, blah, blah, you'll be able to retort that all of their favorite apps will run natively on Linux or OSX, thus freeing them from any sort of platform dependence.

As an added bonus, .NET is a great tool. C# really does allow some very neat and timesaving features for development. That's the number one reason more people don't develop for Linux/Unix. Some people are too young to remember WHY we left Unix on the big-iron all those years ago, but if we insist on repeating those mistakes, let's at least provide an evironment that can muster some developer support. Not everyone is writing a Word/Excel/Photoshop. Some people like to site down and bang out a few lines of code, and be confident that it'll work as intended, where intended. VB has gone a long way toward keeping the Mom & Pop development shops on Windows. If we can begin to get these folks to consider making cross-platform apps, then half the battle will be over. Now we just need to convince the users of those apps that there are advantages to running them on Linux. Better hurry before Longhorn comes out, too... That may set OSS back 10 years or more, but at least MS has given us an extra three years to innovate in the meantime!

Re:Will the coders use it though?

[dekeji]

Will they be concerned enough that Linux and OS X users are worthwhile supporting to make sure it is cross-platform?

Unlike Java, Mono doesn't try to shove cross-platform development down people's throats. If developers want to use Mono to develop Windows-specific applications, that's cool. If developers want to use Mono to develope Linux-specific applications, that's cool, too. If developers want to develop cross-platform applications with Mono, that's cool, too, and Mono supports that, too.

I suspect the biggest use of Mono will be the development of Linux desktop apps using Gnome/Gtk+. Many of those applications will be difficult to port over to Windows because they will rely on Linux-specific features. But that's no different from Gtk+ applications written in C or C++; Mono simply makes it easier to develop such applications by giving developers a choice of using C#.

The second biggest use of Mono will likely be the deployment of applications and libraries developed for Windows on Linux machines. Those applications were not originally written with cross-platform portability in mind, but by supporting Microsoft's APIs well enough, those applications will either work out of the box, or port over easily.

So, Mono gives the programmer the choice between writing cross-platform apps or taking advantage of platform-specific features. That's where the choice belongs, IMO.

Re:Will the coders use it though?

[alext]

You are operating under the assumption that the main use of Mono is going to be to allow people to write .NET software

Strangely that assumption is quite widespread. I think I've tracked down the source though.

Lucky that for you portability from Dotnet to Mono is an added bonus. Let's hope that other Mono users will have an equally chilled attitude!

Re:Will the coders use it though?

[Slime-dogg]

Better hurry before Longhorn comes out, too... That may set OSS back 10 years or more, but at least MS has given us an extra three years to innovate in the meantime!

Meh. MS has the plans for Longhorn written already, and they are busy coding / taking peices out. All the while, OSS innovates. A typical modern Linux setup will run just as fast, if not faster than an equivalent Windows XP setup. And development continues onward and upward. Now, with X.org being the *new* standard, development of that environment will take off (crosses fingers). We won't have to deal with the sluggish , non-innovating ouncil of XFree86.

It's probable that equivalent alternative OSS workstations will be at the same level that Longhorn will be within a year and a half. When Longhorn comes out, it will be obsolete. Then again, the transition to from Win32 to Longhorn will be just as painful as a transition from Win32 to Linux/BSD w/ X.

The only thing that I see holding Linux back is the hardware adoption / drivers. Companies aren't going to be too interested in developing Linux drivers if we have things like ndiswrapper around. I'm still pissed at Realtek, who said they would release a 2.6.* compatible wireless driver in April, but still haven't. At least Nvidia and ATI aren't delaying Linux adoption... I suppose that a little company called ID is helping in that respect.

RAD tools

[BillsPetMonkey]

What mono needs is a good RAD tool for developing GTK# based apps. I know you can reference GTK# libraries in VS.NET but there's no support for cross platform forms design.

The syntax for building Winforms is completely different to GTK# (as one might expect) but the documentation I've found doesn't really map types and methods for developers familiar with existing RAD tools such as MonoDevelop and the excellent SharpDevelop.

Tool designer support for GTK# is crucial.

Bull

[tgrigsby]

As you can clearly see, Mono brings almost limitless possibilities in breaking down the barrier between desktops: a commercial software provider would target Mono and it would "just work" on all platforms that Mono supported. How is this different from Java? In my opinion Java makes things harder than it needs to be. For starters, enforced exception handling can't auto-box/unbox primitive types and doesn't support arbitrary length parameter lists String.Format() style.


I find this kind of claptrap irritating. Java is one of the easiest platforms to jump into. If you found it harder than it needed to be, you needed more coffee.

Fills a needed gap

[Ars-Fartsica]

Novell is banking on making Windows->Linux migrations simple as a selling point for their tools. Providing a viable supported .net platform is a key. Do I think that this will become the de facto Linux dev kit? No. Too many users love their kit of choice (perl,pythong,java,etc) and in any case the open source community abhors being told how to develop. Nonetheless having one more option is a benefit. The only downside is potential bloat of distro CDs, but hey we crossed this line a long time ago and its what you have to do if you want to support N dev toolkits.

Re:Fills a needed gap

[metallikop]

I dont think the goal of mono is to replace all the other dev kits. Wouldn't it make more sense to write your Windows application in C# and just compile it for Mono while you're at it? Seems to me that this is a very easy way for developers to make their application cross-compatable without any extra work.

So no, this WON'T replace X, it will make it a better decision to use C# in the future. A plus to both Windows application devs, and Linux users alike.

Re:Why should "cross platform" always mean Java/.N

[turgid]

The only thing that Mono/.NET has going for it, as far as I can see, is that it is designed to be targetted from multiple languages. Python and Java are both languages and run-time thingies.

It will be a sad say indeed when developers are tied to a specific language for a specific platform just because that is what someone has mandated from on high.

I look forward to the legal and security issues with .NET, Mono and .GNU. We live in interesting times.

Just a bit biased....

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mono project was conceived in the Summer of 2001 as an Open Source alternative to Microsoft's .NET development platform. Since then, it has come all the way to a 1.0 release among a flurry of controversy from mostly inside the Open Source community itself. Although we will not outline the reasons here, most of the criticism stems from the fact that .NET is Microsoft, and "we" don't like them.

What a stupid simplification!! There are legitimate concerns over how MS exerts it monopoly power, and many of the resultant concerns with Mono and its support of MS' .Net are not satisfactorily answered. What about MS total control of the standard? What good will the standard be if the company that owns 95% of the desktop starts shipping a .Net that deviates from the standard? What about the parts of .Net that are not covered by the the standard, and in fact have intellectual property encomberances?

Mono's main pull for developers is that it is cross-platform and makes writing applications very fast because of its extensive framework. Mono also has the concept of garbage collection. Gone are the days of using malloc() and free() and recording where you allocated memory and making sure you free() it. Java has GC as well, but Java never really caught on as an application language.

Another biased statement; has C# caught on as an application language? Why not point out that C# is pretty close to a clone of the Java language, and that .Net is essentially the Java runtime environment, with MS additions. Why is .Net any better than Java for application development. Is its speed any better? Is Mono's speed any better than Java's?

I don't mind a review of Mono. I was interested in reading it, and would like to know more about it. But, when the author so casually dismisses the concerns with MS and Mono, or dismisses the legitimacy of Java, I question his objectivity.

And how is this better than wxWidgets/wxPython?

[kollivier]

I've already been doing this sort of cross-platform programming for years with wxWidgets/wxPython. I'm not waiting on Mac support - I'm already using it (and improving it!). What amazes me is that the authors act like Mono is breaking new ground by having a portable programming language that can do GUIs but is easier than Java. Hello? Apparently no one ever told them about Python/wxPython?

And not only can I use it today, I get better results than I would with GTK# or Java in terms of cross-platform interfaces. If you've ever seen the GIMP on Windows, you'd know that GTK apps don't quite look like professional Windows apps. Emulated interfaces will always look out of place, particularly as themes get more common.

I'd encourage anyone who is interested in cross-platform programming to download Python and wxPython, then run the wxPython demo on Windows, Linux or Mac OS X, and then explain to me exactly how it is that Mono is breaking new ground. (Note also that the wxPython 2.5.2 release on Mac will sport a number of nice improvements and is due out soon.)

The only new and unique thing that I see about Mono is that it uses and is compatible with APIs designed by Microsoft. As a compatibility layer, that has some value, but they will always be two steps behind Microsoft and MS will always ensure that the best .NET experience comes from using Windows. And as the Ars Technica article shows, it's going to be a while before anyone can really write sophisticated cross-platform GUI apps using this toolkit. (And will it be GTK# on Mac? Does that mean X11 is needed there? Ugh.)

Anyways, time to go back to making my native, cross-platform apps. ;-)

Some silly points

[I_Love_Pocky!]

The article mentioned that the C# makes things simple that would be complicated in C/C++ (the example was RegEX). This is kind of a screwy way of looking at things, and not much of a selling point for C# in my book. Something like RegEX is provided to C# through a library (or framework if you prefer), and isn't part of the actual language. If you want such a simple interface to a RegEX, it would be easy to get a similar thing for C or C++.

Overall I thought the article was pretty devoid of any meaningful reason for why we should use mono. It doesn't sound better than Java (not worse either), and it isn't a replacement for C/C++.

Evaluation applies to any VM language

[David Ishee]

There is nothing special in general about .NET that doesn't apply equally to Java. They are both VM languages that have good library support.

The great power of Mono and .NET lies in the ONE line of code:

bool matches = Regex.IsMatch( input, regex );

.NET and Mono are actually a collection of libraries that form a framework which allows you, the programmer, to write the logic of your application. I can call one line of code to do input validation on a string which saves you possibly hours of time.

The description of the power .NET here isn't .NET specific. Actually, any language with good library support will meet this criteria of "power".

As you can clearly see, Mono brings almost limitless possibilities in breaking down the barrier between desktops: a commercial software provider would target Mono and it would "just work" on all platforms that Mono supported. How is this different from Java? In my opinion Java makes things harder than it needs to be. For starters, enforced exception handling can't auto-box/unbox primitive types and doesn't support arbitrary length parameter lists String.Format() style.

Give me a break! Autoboxing and the String.Format() comment are very trivial things to complain about. Enforced exception handling is a little more complex and the debate will probably never end on which is better.

I think the success of Java vs .NET will depend on how it is distributed and the "user experience" of installing and using .NET vs Java applications. Sun doesn't have the same level of control over the desktop experience that Microsoft has for desktop applications so that may be a deciding factor for most users.

On the server, Java is already very popular and installation/launching headaches are tolerated more because admins are willing to put in a little more effort than most users.

Other issues such as relative performance and the "look and feel" will also play a big role with users.

In the general theoretical sense, there isn't much difference between Java and .NET. The success of each will depend on the implementation.

Re:Why should "cross platform" always mean Java/.N

[killjoe]

"The only thing that Mono/.NET has going for it, as far as I can see, is that it is designed to be targetted from multiple languages."

So is parrot. But what is the point anyway? Are you going to have a project where each member of the team is going to program in a different language? Are you going to have an open source project which accepts patches in 10 different languages?

I never did understand why this was a desirable thing. It sounds like a nightmare to me.

Re:A strange place to follow Microsoft

[scrytch]

bool matches = Regex.IsMatch( input, regex );

Yippie skippie. Show me the code for a RFC822 and MIME multipart parser or something actually beyond this hello world stuff. Regular expressions are library stuff, they have been trivial for more than 10 years. Show me some real work getting done.

(no this isn't aimed at you, I just want to hang my reply off something)