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Ars Technica Tours Mono

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the git-some-edumacation dept.

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."

2 of 465 comments (clear)

  1. Why should "cross platform" always mean Java/.NET? by PommeFritz · · Score: 5, Interesting
    What I don't understand is that when people are talking about "cross platform" programming, it almost always is about Java or .NET/Mono. What is it that those 2 seem to be mutually connected to "cross platform"?

    I mean, take Python! (my favorite high level cross-platform programming languate)
    • Python has been around longer than Java (it's from 1991)
    • Python has been ported to a lot more platforms than Java (and certainly .NET!)
    • Python has various powerful language features that Java, C# can only dream of (metaclasses, generators, list comprehensions)
    • Pure python programs will run everywhere a suitable Python is available
    What's so special about Java or .NET that makes them the talk of the day, while other much more interesting languages seem to be ignored in this matter?
  2. Wrong, wrong, wrong by ultrabot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No, Python is a SCRIPTING languate [sic].

    No, it's a programming language. It's just productive enough for scripting. "Scripting language" doesn't really mean anything.

    I would also add that the Java SDK supplies developers with FAR more common libraries than Python does which tends to cut development time.

    Python libraries generally have better (simpler) design and are easier to use. And there are lots of them, both in the standard library and available separately.

    Semantically, Java is a pure-OO language. Python is not.

    It's exactly the other way around. Python is pure OO language, java is not. Does 'int' ring a bell for you? Python provides functions, but they are objects, just like ints, strings and, say, sockets.

    Not that being pure OO language is the end-all and be-all. It just makes the language semantically cleaner while trading off some performance.

    Opening a file in Python is a one liner. In Java you need 2 or more objects and 3+ lines of code. But you have much greater control over how the descripter is read.

    You can have all the control you need, all the way down to file descriptor level. People just don't seem to need the control. Nothing prevents you from writing wrapper objects with different buffering policies.

    Maybe because nobody has a mainstream cross platform app that is written in a scripting language?

    Bittorrent? And quit with the "scripting language" term, it's ignorant or intellectually dishonest, take your pick.

    --
    Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak