Free Ebook on C# Programming

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Posted by michael on Thursday December 9, 2004 @04:22AM from the eye-strain dept.

christophw writes "The programmers of SharpDevelop (better known to the /. crowd will be its sibling MonoDevelop) together with the publisher Apress made the book Dissecting a C# Application - Inside SharpDevelop available as a freely downloadable PDF document (no, no registration required). So if you want to judge for yourself if one can build an application of scale with .NET (or Mono for that matter), you now have a 500+ pages book for the holiday reading season (or the virtual bookshelf)."

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Shameless self-promo by prostoalex · 2004-12-09 04:44 · Score: 4, Informative

Free tech books
Large collection of free online books at UPenn (not just tech)
1. Re:Shameless self-promo by kisielk · 2004-12-09 07:10 · Score: 1
  
  Definitely good, your site rocks :) Books could possibly use some better categorization especially if you start adding any more, but overall it's an awesome resource.
2. Re:Shameless self-promo by battlemarch · 2004-12-09 07:50 · Score: 1
  
  Oh my... nice. Thank you.
  
  Now, having said that.. you missed one. :-)
  
  Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days
  
  --
  Oh, come, come, come. Without a monster or two, it's hardly a quest... merely a gaggle of friends wandering about. - Owl
3. Re:Shameless self-promo by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-09 08:19 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  No. Never, in my entire life, have I missed Java.
  Only thing looked better in the rear-view mirror was that <human> <female> who shall remain unnamed.
4. Re:Shameless self-promo by Kelerain · 2004-12-09 08:46 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I'd just like to note
  "- E-mail required to download the single 500-page PDF file."
  Isn't quite true. If you uncheck 'Subscribe to Apress Newsletter' then hit download, it will let you by, without an email address.
  
  And I *love* your site by the way. I've used several of those resources already and forwarded it to my academic advisor, who forwarded it to the entire CSET program. (small program though). Keep up the great work!
5. Re:Shameless self-promo by superpulpsicle · 2004-12-09 08:56 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks man. Seems like most of them have pdf links so you can permanently hang on to them forever.
6. Re:Shameless self-promo by prostoalex · 2004-12-09 13:08 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  This one is not really clean in terms of copyright. It's a copy of Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days from Sams, and I am not aware of Sams ever releasing any of their stuff into public domain. All the books on my site are clean.
7. Re:Shameless self-promo by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-09 14:52 · Score: 0
  
  Permanently forever? Wow, that's a long time!
8. Re:Shameless self-promo by battlemarch · 2004-12-10 02:50 · Score: 1
  
  Then you may want to check your C/C++ page.
  
  I found the Java book by first following the link to Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days on your C/C++ page.
  
  --
  Oh, come, come, come. Without a monster or two, it's hardly a quest... merely a gaggle of friends wandering about. - Owl
9. Re:Shameless self-promo by prostoalex · 2004-12-10 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, thanks, this one slipped through.
10. Re:Shameless self-promo by battlemarch · 2004-12-10 21:19 · Score: 1
  
  No Problem, you're welcome.
  
  And again, thank you for all those useful links.
  
  --
  Oh, come, come, come. Without a monster or two, it's hardly a quest... merely a gaggle of friends wandering about. - Owl
First Post by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-09 04:50 · Score: -1, Offtopic

Man, Rob Malda is THE SUCK. Check out how shitty Slashdot has gotten. And he's instituted all these IP banning policies to try to keep the trolls in line. Guess what Malda - it's not fucking working. The site isn't shitty because the trolls are overrunning it. It's because the editors are running it. I've never seen such a collection of rejects. Make timmy or mikey or robbie get real jobs and they'd be on their asses inside of two weeks. Fuck Slashdot - this is my final post.
Oh, and you all the 12 year olds with moderation privileges - mod this down immediately. It's really important that you do so.
Yeah, right by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-09 05:03 · Score: -1, Troll

Learn the language that will be the downfall of the open-source community? Not likely. Here's a newsflash C# kiddies: Python, Perl, Ruby, Java, etc. already have RegExp ability! Your language is not fucking special!
1. Re:Yeah, right by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-09 05:28 · Score: 0
  
  Wow, you think RegExp capability is a key language feature?
2. Re:Yeah, right by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-09 05:44 · Score: 0
  
  I don't, but a lot of the C# advocacy articles I've seen have pimped that feature. I've also seen several Slashdot comments that drooled about "how cool" C#'s regular expressions feature is.
3. Re:Yeah, right by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-09 08:26 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Without working in .NET for more than a couple months, with an open attitude, you can't really have a credible opinion. Just because it's Microsoft, you'll get the people who are automatically anti, and then you also will have people who are only Microsoft that will think it's gods greatest gift. Fox example, C# has some nice features such as using delegates for events vs. having to implement the observer pattern in java. But then you'll also have somebody who doesn't know about the SOAP toolkits in Java that can build WSDL proxies just like the .NET utility does. More than anything, it's all opinion. Use the right tool for the job. If I'm going to write a web service, I'll take an ASP.NET web service any day. If I need to parse a huge file, give me Perl. Can't all languages just get along!!!
4. Re:Yeah, right by Decaff · 2004-12-09 12:05 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  For many of us, it's not a case of being pro- or anti-Microsoft, it's a matter of simple business sense: Having only a single supplier for a technology has never been considered a sensible strategy in any area of business - with the strange exception of IT. Perhaps there is a mistaken sense that much software is always short-term and temporary, so it doesn't matter if the neat and friendly development system you use comes from only one company, and runs on only one platform.
  
  Well, I was using Turbo Pascal on Windows a decade ago. Now I'm developing for companies which have rolled out Linux desktops!
  
  Using .Net seems very short-sighted to me.
5. Re:Yeah, right by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-09 15:31 · Score: 0
  
  There is not one supplier. http://www.mono-project.com/ and http://www.dotgnu.org/.
  
  But if you don't want to use .NET,Mono, or dotGNU then fine. But don't think you can influence anybody else to not use them.
6. Re:Yeah, right by Decaff · 2004-12-09 22:05 · Score: 1
  
  There is a very big difference between .Net and the OSS implementations - one is supported by Microsoft and the other's aren't. One meets a full (and possibly changing) spec, including libraries, the others don't.
  
  But if you don't want to use .NET,Mono, or dotGNU then fine. But don't think you can influence anybody else to not use them.
  
  Oh, I not only think I can influence people not to use .Net, I already successfully have. I manage development that HAS to be successfully cross-platform. Not partially cross-platform, but where a rich and full-featured deployed application can be switched between different operating systems at short notice, with no porting required for GUI aspects or enterprise features. Using .Net was out of the question. Just look at the notes on the Mono website:
  
  Unsupported technologies
  
  Some technologies are very hard to implement or are being phased out by components in the Longhorn time frame. In some cases, we feel that they are not crucial to the future of the open source desktop.
  
  With all respect to the Mono developers (who have done a great job), I don't want to rely on a system which has missing ('hard to implement') features. This is proof that .Net is NOT cross-platform, only selected parts. When you are developing critical business applications, you really can't trust a 'cross-platform' technology that is incomplete, no matter how much you may like that technology.
7. Re:Yeah, right by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-10 02:39 · Score: 0
  
  Oh, I understand how bitter you and the other rabid microsoft haters are that Mono and dotGNU was even started. That Miguel, Rhys, and company have the gall to copy some microsoft technology onto Unix just infuriates you. I realize that the java developers are extremely angry that .NET/C# has many technological advantages over Java. And the most infuriating thing for the linux fangirls is that many Gnome developers actually like Mono/Gtk#.
  
  It looks like you've drunk the Sun koolaid regarding cross-platform. dotGNU already runs on more platforms than any Sun implementation of Java.
  
  And finally, when did Sun support the JDK?
8. Re:Yeah, right by Decaff · 2004-12-10 04:11 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, I understand how bitter you and the other rabid microsoft haters are that Mono and dotGNU was even started.
  
  Not bitter, just puzzled. Why copy Microsoft? All that expertise could have gone into an entirely new bytecode/runtime/language combination - something that could never be threatened by patents or trying to catch a moving target.
  
  I find it bizarre that so many developers who don't like Java (because of licencing) are prepared to work on duplicating Microsoft technologies. In the past, anyone who has come anywhere developing a successful clone of a Microsoft product as either been sued or bought out. That is not an emotional response, or Microsoft-hating, its all on the record.
  
  And the most infuriating thing for the linux fangirls is that many Gnome developers actually like Mono/Gtk#.
  
  Why should it be infuriating? Mono/Gtk# is a great technology, and has come far in a short time. Good luck to it! It would be great if Mono became a high-quality standard for cross-platform enterprise applications. Guess what! It runs Java too!
  
  My point is that it is NOT .Net: significant bits are missing, and are always likely to be.
  
  It looks like you've drunk the Sun koolaid regarding cross-platform. dotGNU already runs on more platforms than any Sun implementation of Java.
  
  How is this relevant to anything? The Sun implementation of Java runs on far more platforms than the Microsoft implementation of .Net. So what? This is of no relevance to the discussion at all. Java (all implementations) runs with complete API and libraries on far, far more platforms than .Net (complete API and libraries).
  
  Mono and dotGNU are NOT complete implementations of .Net
  
  And finally, when did Sun support the JDK?
  
  Like, since 1994 when Java was released.
9. Re:Yeah, right by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-10 18:20 · Score: 0
  
  Not bitter, just puzzled. Why copy Microsoft? All that expertise could have gone into an entirely new bytecode/runtime/language combination - something that could never be threatened by patents or trying to catch a moving target.
  
  I find it bizarre that so many developers who don't like Java (because of licencing) are prepared to work on duplicating Microsoft technologies. In the past, anyone who has come anywhere developing a successful clone of a Microsoft product as either been sued or bought out. That is not an emotional response, or Microsoft-hating, its all on the record.
  
  That's the crux of the matter. Open source hasn't come up with something like .NET or Java. Open source is always playing catch-up. Parrot is still in that vaporware stage.
  
  Why should it be infuriating? Mono/Gtk# is a great technology, and has come far in a short time. Good luck to it! It would be great if Mono became a high-quality standard for cross-platform enterprise applications. Guess what! It runs Java too!
  
  Agreed.
  
  My point is that it is NOT .Net: significant bits are missing, and are always likely to be.
  
  The only missing bits are going to be the Microsoft.* namespace. This is insignificant.
  
  How is this relevant to anything? The Sun implementation of Java runs on far more platforms than the Microsoft implementation of .Net. So what? This is of no relevance to the discussion at all. Java (all implementations) runs with complete API and libraries on far, far more platforms than .Net (complete API and libraries).
  
  Mono and dotGNU are NOT complete implementations of .Net
  
  It's irrelevant that Sun's Java implementation runs on more platforms than .NET because it doesn't matter who implements the platform. Once again, except for the Microsoft.* namespace, Mono will have a complete implementation.
  
  Like, since 1994 when Java was released.
  
  Oh really? What kind of support? I'm somehow entitled to talk to a support engineer from Sun because I download the SDK? Or are you talking abut a support contract?
10. Re:Yeah, right by Decaff · 2004-12-11 00:26 · Score: 1
  
  The only missing bits are going to be the Microsoft.* namespace. This is insignificant.
  
  If this is going to be the case soon, I'm certainly going to be more interested in Mono, although I'd still be very nervous about what MS would do if Mono got really successful.
  
  Oh really? What kind of support? I'm somehow entitled to talk to a support engineer from Sun because I download the SDK? Or are you talking abut a support contract?
  
  Support contract. You can buy support for Java from Sun.
11. Re:Yeah, right by Nohea · 2004-12-13 09:09 · Score: 1
  
  Mono and dotGNU are NOT complete implementations of .Net
  
  Linux is not a complete implementation of Unix
Don't get it by 0x54524F4C4C · 2004-12-09 05:03 · Score: -1, Troll

People like to fool themselves when they play with C#. It's a Java clone that has no libraries to support serious development, no application servers, is limited to microsoft shops doing upgrades from VB6 applications, has miserable performance, and depends on ridiculous IDEs that eat 100MB of main memory just to start. But, of course, since the weak mexican-Mono-OSS thing exists it must be good right?
1. Re:Don't get it by mattgreen · 2004-12-09 05:22 · Score: 1
  
  Kind of like people who fool themselves into thinking they know what they are talking about?
2. Re:Don't get it by LiENUS · 2004-12-09 05:59 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Have you used .Net? it is actually quite decent, and if you really need libraries it is possible to make calls to windows dlls. Perhaps you should give it a try, its not just a Java clone. When it matures a bit it will be an excellent way to achieve cross platform applications.
3. Re:Don't get it by Decaff · 2004-12-09 11:56 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly how is .Net supposed to be a way to achieve cross platform applications? Microsoft have no intention of porting .Net to anything other than Windows, and have not provided assistance in the development of .Net clones (such as Mono). Full .Net is likely to remain Windows-only long-term.
4. Re:Don't get it by LiENUS · 2004-12-09 12:51 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I developed a .Net application without cross platform in mind at all, and immediately it ran under DotGNU's Portable.NET. and microsoft has expressed an interest in alternative implementations of .NET. according to the Mono faq at http://www.mono-project.com/about/faq.html#msft
  
  Question 38: Is Microsoft helping Novell with this project?
  
  There is no high level communication between Novell and Microsoft at this point, but engineers who work on .NET or the ECMA groups have been very friendly, and very nice to answer our questions, or clarify part of the specification for us.
  
  Microsoft is interested in other implementations of .NET and are willing to help make the ECMA spec more accurate for this purpose.
5. Re:Don't get it by nickd · 2004-12-09 17:39 · Score: 1
  
  Microsoft dont need to port it.
  
  Mono
  Portable.NET
  DotGnu
  
  So some of the biggest groups in OSS development seem to think that it might be a good idea to have an implementation of the CLI for other operating systems (Linux, OSX, Windows, Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD) and architectures (x86, PowerPC, ARM, Sparc, PARISC, s390, Alpha, and IA-64 to name a few).
  
  What you have to keep in mind is that the CLI (the virtual machine in a sense) is an ISO standard (Java still isnt). The API's such as the System.* namespaces are still in a murky area and they may still be controlled vigorously through MS legal. But that doesnt stop any developer from using API's developed independantly - ie gtk#/Wx.NET for cross platform gui across the above mentioned platforms (still in development.. but it will get there soon).
6. Re:Don't get it by ivano · 2004-12-09 20:08 · Score: 1
  
  debugging on .NET is a joy! And I'm a Java guy (well, depending on the time of week)
  Ciao
7. Re:Don't get it by Decaff · 2004-12-09 21:46 · Score: 1
  
  What you have to keep in mind is that the CLI (the virtual machine in a sense) is an ISO standard (Java still isnt)
  
  I would rather have a non-ISO standard from a company (Sun) that has had a solid reputation for decades for upholding standards, than an ISO standard from Microsoft, which has a solid reputation for dumping standards on a whim.
  
  The ISO standard for the CLI will be of no use at all if Microsoft decides in a few years that an entirely new technology is better and relegates .Net to legacy (look at how it has treated Visual Basic 6 developers, for example).
8. Re:Don't get it by Decaff · 2004-12-09 21:53 · Score: 1
  
  My point is made by another quote from that site:
  
  Question 50: Can mono run the WebMatrix?
  
  No. That requires System.Windows.Forms support which is not currently implemented.
  
  A non-Microsoft .Net is always likely to have significant sections with are 'not currently implemented'
9. Re:Don't get it by winchester · 2004-12-10 01:02 · Score: 1
  
  The ISO standard for the CLI will be of no use at all if Microsoft decides in a few years that an entirely new technology is better and relegates .Net to legacy (look at how it has treated Visual Basic 6 developers, for example).
  Plus the fact that just the CLR was submitted for certification, not the all-importent windows.forms and web.forms libraries every windows developer uses...
  Plus the fact that if you do not live in the windows world, there already is a well-established cross-platform language, with the associated runtime, called Java. Well supported by major vendors like IBM, who basically told Microsoft to shove .NET in a warm, dark hole.
10. Re:Don't get it by Decaff · 2004-12-10 01:24 · Score: 1
  
  Plus the fact that if you do not live in the windows world, there already is a well-established cross-platform language, with the associated runtime, called Java. Well supported by major vendors like IBM, who basically told Microsoft to shove .NET in a warm, dark hole.
  
  The thing I find it hard to get across to many Windows developers is that Java does Windows too! It may not do things as elegantly as .Net in terms of the client side, but the full functionality is there: There are plenty of tools that allow ActiveX/COM integration with both SWT and Swing Java clients for example, and the new Native Desktop APIs are superb. Java works fine in the Windows world!
11. Re:Don't get it by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-10 05:52 · Score: 0
  
  Well, Micrsoft is supposedly working on getting C# to run on mainframes. I agree that Microsoft failed in making .NET truly cross platform, but just as much as Java has failed with "write once run anywhere", I've heard many a stories from our architects here at work. .NET is young, I think we'll see after Longhorn comes out if the cross compatibility issue will still be a goal because System.Windows.Forms will no longer just be wrapper classes for the System32 dll's. I work at a Java shop and I've been becoming more and more interested in the OSS community, but I do feel there is a place for proprietary technology. But the bad news for all the anti MS people is, as big as MS is, and as much resources as they are using to progress .NET, .NET will be around for quite a while. Eventually way downt he road .NET will be dropped and they will release somthing new, but that's fine, it keeps me fresh with learning new technologies and not becoming dinosaured out and being one of those people who can't find a job in a saturated market in poor economic times. I know I come accross like I'm 100% pro MS, but I'm not, I completely agree with another post on here where the author stated Java is fine on Windows (executable jars freakin rock). Can anybody admit though that virtually everything in the Java 1.5 release was just catching up to where C# is now? One more thing, I maybe I should also make a comment about the original post topic. An author was complaining about how much hardware you need to run Sharp Develope, well that's just where we are now. SharpDevelope is writtin with managed code, just the same as Eclipse requres a beefy machine. I always have to remind my friends that computer hardware is cheeper and beefier than ever, so expect the software to be the same.
12. Re:Don't get it by Decaff · 2004-12-10 06:16 · Score: 1
  
  but just as much as Java has failed with "write once run anywhere
  
  I think that almost all current Java developers would disagree with you here! Almost all the tools I use for Java development and all the libraries I use are completely platform neutral. In the early days there were serious platform-dependencies (there were thread issues on Linux for example), but those days are long past. I routinely transfer major projects between Windows, Solaris and Linux with no effort at all.
  
  Eventually way downt he road .NET will be dropped and they will release somthing new, but that's fine,
  
  Those of us (like me) who spend a significant part of their time struggling to port legacy code to something modern and supportable learn to worry about such dropping of technologies. Java, for all its many faults, has been designed to be around for decades.
  
  Can anybody admit though that virtually everything in the Java 1.5 release was just catching up to where C# is now?
  
  I won't agree! There are huge new features in Java 1.5 with have nothing to do with C# - additions to the threading libraries, GUI enhancements etc. Generics have been under development for a very long time in Java (before C#) and are done in a different way. Annotations are, I agree, a catch-up feature (and very welcome).
13. Re:Don't get it by Bill+Dog · 2004-12-10 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  I thought Windows Forms was going to be essentially deprecated anyways, when Longhorn is released, in favor of Avalon/XAML?
  
  --
  Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
14. Re:Don't get it by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-10 10:41 · Score: 0
  
  Ok, I will admit that my slam was too general of a statement and not fair, I will take that one back. And I can certainly respect your point about porting legacy systems to new technologies being a pain, but hey, it gives you a job (hehe). With 1.5 you can't forget about enumerated lists and change of the for each looping. Java is still a young language, and I guess what chaps me the most about everybodies anti MS sediments is the fact that MS DOES provide good technologies, but nobody ever gives them the credit.
15. Re:Don't get it by Decaff · 2004-12-11 00:44 · Score: 1
  
  And I can certainly respect your point about porting legacy systems to new technologies being a pain, but hey, it gives you a job (hehe).
  
  heh - and a lot of others too!
  
  I guess what chaps me the most about everybodies anti MS sediments is the fact that MS DOES provide good technologies, but nobody ever gives them the credit.
  
  I agree that when they do things, they do things well. My grouch with them is based on nearly 30 years (!) of using their products (I used their cassette-tape-based Macro Assembler for Z80 in the 70s). They always seem to play catch-up with other technologies then act as if they invented them! From Windowing to Object Orientation. I remember a recent note on their website regarding the addition of inheritance to Visual Basic in VB.Net as 'Innovative'! Excuse me! I was using inheritance in Smalltalk 20 years ago! They could easily have added full object-orientation to Visual Basic a decade before and made things easier for developers, but chose not to, for marketing reasons. Its their combination of arrogance and nerve that gets to me.
16. Re:Don't get it by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-13 03:04 · Score: 0
  
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/07/Sha redSourceCLI/
Using SharpDevelop for about a week by Omega1045 · 2004-12-09 05:34 · Score: 4, Informative

I have been taking SharpDevelop for a test drive for the last week. I have been developing C#/.NET apps for the last 2 or 3 years with Visual Studio. I have found that VS.NET does a pretty good job, but has some big, bad bugs when you run into them (very occasionally for me).
I have found SharpDevelop to be very nice. The environment is very, very similar to VS.NET. It has a very professional look and feel, and I have found it a nice platform for building C# apps.
The only part missing in SharpDevelop is the ability to add "Web References", or references to XML SOAP resources. VS.NET automajically builds local interface classes and adds them to your project when you reference a XML SOAP resource, so that you have local classes and functions to call on. In turn, these call on the SOAP functions over the network. You do not need to know anything about the inner workings of the SOAP protocol to call upon remote functions.
Other than that missing piece, SharpDevelop is very fully featured and has yet to crash. Make sure to read the FAQ on their site if it does crash the first time you try to run it after install - their is a bug in the installer.

--
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
1. Re:Using SharpDevelop for about a week by LiENUS · 2004-12-09 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  My only complaint so far about sharpdevelop is that its a bit slow starting up, however ngen seems to speed it up a bit. My understanding of VS.NET is that it does some extra trickery wherein the executables it produces actually contain x86 code and for the most part just use the .Net api instead of using the vm. This would explain why VS.NET is so much faster than #Develop.
2. Re:Using SharpDevelop for about a week by mattgreen · 2004-12-09 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  I believe most of VS.NET is written in C++. The Forms Designer is written in C#, among a few other things (add-ins can be written in C#, for example, implying the CLR being hosted inside of the app for extensibility purposes).
  
  I still find VS.NET quite slow for an IDE, however. Once I got one gigabyte of memory it really seemed to help things, but I'm still somewhat disappointed with it overall. Gone is the perkiness of VS6.
3. Re:Using SharpDevelop for about a week by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-09 07:29 · Score: 0
  
  i agree completely on the slow IDE... Did the move to 1 gig really make it faster though? ive been sitting on 512 for a while, but figured the jump wouldnt be that dramatic?
4. Re:Using SharpDevelop for about a week by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-09 07:38 · Score: 0
  
  I've been using the VS 2005 beta and it's quite a bit snappier, so maybe theres some hope. It's a lot nicer than 2003.
5. Re:Using SharpDevelop for about a week by RodeoBoy · 2004-12-10 01:44 · Score: 1
  
  In my experience a gig makes a big difference. My current work environment I am also running IIS and a full suite of Rational tools and my machine plugs along fine. At half a gig that setup is very slow and can only run VS decently when nothing else is loaded up.
6. Re:Using SharpDevelop for about a week by cyberjessy · 2004-12-10 19:03 · Score: 1
  
  The only part missing in SharpDevelop is the ability to add "Web References", or references to XML SOAP resources.
  
  For most people, it would seem that the lack of an integrated debugger is the biggest problem with Sharp Develop. You will have to debug externally with GuiDebug, which is slightly time consuming while testing code.
  
  They are planning to include debug in some future release.
  
  --
  Life is just a conviction.
7. Re:Using SharpDevelop for about a week by Omega1045 · 2004-12-13 01:02 · Score: 1
  
  I noticed this, but I guess it is a feature I use so much in VS.NET that I missed it in my review!
  
  --
  Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Re:Don't bet on it by kupci · 2004-12-09 13:50 · Score: 1

Given MSOFTS past history, I wouldn't bet my marbles on much help from them. A company I know that has a MSOFT product, and uses VMWare where they need to deploy on a non-MSOFT platform.
Re:Don't bet on it by LiENUS · 2004-12-09 15:24 · Score: 1

Except for the fact that .Net code already runs on other platforms see http://www.go-mono.com/ and http://www.dotgnu.org/.
Re:Don't bet on it by Decaff · 2004-12-09 21:49 · Score: 1

Except for the fact that .Net code already runs on other platforms

No. only some .Net code runs on other platforms.

The difference with Java is that if you have a J2EE or J2SE implementation on a platform you get all of it. Every last API and libary. Guaranteed and tested. There aren't half-implemented bits or enterprise features that aren't supplied.
Decaff by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-10 02:43 · Score: 0

It's obvious that by the number of posts you've made on this thread (for a technology you have no interest in) that you are absolutely infuriated that Java is dead on the desktop and that .NET is being embraced by many in the Gnome community. Hilarious. I can't wait to see you furiously pounding on the keyboard on the next .NET/Mono/dotGNU thread.
1. Re:Decaff by Decaff · 2004-12-10 04:01 · Score: 1
  
  It's obvious that by the number of posts you've made on this thread (for a technology you have no interest in)
  
  I have an interest in all IT technologies, as does any decent professional programmer who wants to keep their job.
  
  that you are absolutely infuriated that Java is dead on the desktop and that .NET is being embraced by many in the Gnome community.
  
  I'm not infuriated. Why should I be? I don't develop much for the desktop, and what I do is for Linux (well, actually for Windows as well, as I use Java). I'm only stating simple business facts. Strange that you should get so worked up about it.
  
  Hilarious.
  
  What is the joke?
  
  I can't wait to see you furiously pounding on the keyboard on the next .NET/Mono/dotGNU thread.
  
  Well, unless you have a webcam, you won't see!
  
  Perhaps some debate involving facts that counter my arguments would be more constructive than insults..
  
  It would be interse
2. Re:Decaff by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-10 18:32 · Score: 0
  
  Ok, you see like a reasonable fellow compared to the normal slashdork fangirls we see around here so I had a knee-jerk reaction to you and apologize.
  
  A couple things though. On a previous thread, you mentioned that you had a hard time convincing Windows developers that Java is a viable alternative for desktop development. Java is not a viable alternative for desktop development - at least with Swing (SWT/JFaces) is a different story, but a little late in the game now that .NET is out. Secondly, you mentioned an open source implementation of a bytecode/runtime/language. Open source fails at these types of projects.
  
  It's not that Java is bad. It's that Sun's stewardship of Java has been bad. All the way from McNealy screaming in the late 90s that Java was the platform and the OS was irrelevant to the disaster that is Swing. It's not much prettier in J2EE land from what I hear either. Some friends of mine on that side of the fence say that J2EE is overly engineered and a bitch to work with. Thankfully, there's other alternatives for them.
3. Re:Decaff by Decaff · 2004-12-11 00:36 · Score: 1
  
  Ok, you see like a reasonable fellow compared to the normal slashdork fangirls we see around here so I had a knee-jerk reaction to you and apologize.
  
  That is very decent of you - thanks!
  
  It's not that Java is bad. It's that Sun's stewardship of Java has been bad. All the way from McNealy screaming in the late 90s that Java was the platform and the OS was irrelevant to the disaster that is Swing.
  
  I certainly agree with you in most respects here. Sun have never been good at knowing how to pitch Java. It should never have been released when it was, when it was slow and buggy.
  
  Swing was absolutely a disaster when it was released - I simply couldn't believe people would write applications that had an interface so slow! Now it is vastly better, with the ability to use OpenGL acceleration. I think you can now write very reasonable applications in Swing, but it has taken a long time to get there!
  
  As for J2EE: There are good bits and bad bits. The bad bits are the enterprise Java beans - cumbersome and hard to debug. The good bits (I think) are the JSP/Servlet parts, and the message queue features.
  
  My personal like of Java is that no matter how bad Sun's implementation of things, you have a choice: if you don't like parts of J2EE, use replacements for it such as Spring.
Simple mental exercise by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-10 03:04 · Score: 0

Name five platforms that J2EE has been ported to. Name five platforms that Mono runs on.
1. Re:Simple mental exercise by Decaff · 2004-12-10 04:27 · Score: 1
  
  Name five platforms that J2EE has been ported to.
  
  Windows, Linux, Solaris, HP/UX, zOS, OS/390, MacOS/X, OpenVMS, NonStop, Tru64.
  
  Name five platforms that Mono runs on.
  
  Well, it's available as packages for Linux, Windows, and MacOS/X. I would imagine that it would compile for many other platforms, such as Solaris and BSDs (that's 5!). I would be surprised to see a version for OpenVMS or zOS.
  
  This comparison is irrelevant anyway - it's not answering my point about incomplete APIs in Mono.
2. Re:Simple mental exercise by LiENUS · 2004-12-10 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  And how old is mono? mono is just starting up, their goal isnt even to get api compatibility untill 2.0. and people are running mono in production environments with xsp already.
3. Re:Simple mental exercise by Decaff · 2004-12-10 07:08 · Score: 1
  
  And how old is mono? mono is just starting up, their goal isnt even to get api compatibility untill 2.0
  
  A good reason to hold off using it for large-scale and business critical applications.
  
  and people are running mono in production environments with xsp already.
  
  Yes, but this STILL does not answer my point about incomplete APIs. I wish Mono well, and hope it takes off as a popular and successful development platform: an open-source and robust competitor to Java would be a great idea. But, it should stand on its own - and not try to be what it can never be - a full cross-platform implementation of Microsoft .Net.
4. Re:Simple mental exercise by LiENUS · 2004-12-10 07:31 · Score: 1
  
  And for what reason cant it be a full cross-platform implementation. the only parts they intend to leave out are things in the Microsoft.* namespace. and a lot of those they are implementing in the Mono.* namespace. when mono 2.0 is finished, you should be able to run anything not depending on something in the Microsoft.* namespace.
5. Re:Simple mental exercise by Decaff · 2004-12-11 02:46 · Score: 1
  
  when mono 2.0 is finished, you should be able to run anything not depending on something in the Microsoft.* namespace.
  
  This is contradicted by the Mono website!
  
  I quote:
  
  Although WinFS, Avalon and Indigo are very exciting components, at this time it is too early to tell when those components will be available for Mono.
  
  and:
  
  Unsupported technologies
  
  Some technologies are very hard to implement or are being phased out by components in the Longhorn time frame. In some cases, we feel that they are not crucial to the future of the open source desktop.
  
  System.EnterpriseServices and System.Management come to mind, and we are unlikely to put any resources into the task. We would gladly host the code if someone cares to implement it, but they would likely remain unsupported features of Mono.
  
  According to Microsoft, System.EnterpriseServices
  "provides an important infrastructure for enterprise applications" and System.Management "allow management software to diagnose and correct problems in an enterprise computing environment".
  
  This functionality is NOT absent in J2EE implementations. Namespaces such as javax.management are available in all J2EE app servers, including JBoss, the open source implementation.
6. Re:Simple mental exercise by LiENUS · 2004-12-11 03:03 · Score: 1
  
  Both of these quotes appear to be out of context, i'm not even sure where the first one comes from and the second one is in respect to running VisualStudio.NET programs under the current version of mono.
7. Re:Simple mental exercise by LiENUS · 2004-12-11 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  Oops, forgot to post some more information.
  According to http://www.mono-project.com/about/mono-roadmap.htm l
  
  Other components like Windows.Forms, Directory.Services, Enterprise Services and JScript are being developed but are not as mature as the other components but are under development by various people.
8. Re:Simple mental exercise by Decaff · 2004-12-11 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  Both of these quotes appear to be out of context, i'm not even sure where the first one comes from and the second one is in respect to running VisualStudio.NET programs under the current version of mono.
  
  They are not out of context. They are taken directly from the Mono roadmap page:
  
  http://www.mono-project.com/about/mono-roadmap.h tm l
  
  The second is not in respect to VisualStudio.Net programs. Its a general statement. VisualStudio.Net is not mentioned in that context at all.
9. Re:Simple mental exercise by Decaff · 2004-12-11 03:34 · Score: 1
  
  Other components like Windows.Forms, Directory.Services, Enterprise Services and JScript are being developed but are not as mature as the other components but are under development by various people.
  
  Yes, I have seen that page. It's the same page that mentions that some of the enterprise services are likely to remain unsupported!
  
  That page gives a definite emphasis on the intended use of Mono: the 'open source desktop'. Well, fine! That's actually what a lot of .Net is being used for. But, a large number of developers (perhaps the majority) develop server-side, and stable enterprise APIs are important to at least some of us. It's neither practical or sensible to start developing with Mono hoping that certain parts of the enterprise features will be stable and complete sometime soon (especially when their website gives contradictory information). The choice for stable enterprise features is currently between Microsoft .Net or J2EE. If you want portability, it has to be J2EE.
Groovy! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-10 03:57 · Score: 0

If you are interested in C# you should take a look at Groovy as well. It's a scripting language extension of Java, with the best of Java, Python and Ruby.

http://groovy.codehaus.org/

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04 /0 3/16/2334201&tid=108&tid=156&tid=8
Has to be said by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-10 08:57 · Score: 0

If its not assembler its just scripting.
Time for digital book burning by JPyObjC+Dude · 2004-12-10 10:00 · Score: 1

Let me ad VB help files, J++, VBScript for starters :]
I'll admit... by Svartalf · 2004-12-11 09:34 · Score: 1

...I'm at least passingly interested in C# and if Mono can help my clients kick their MS habits, then it's all right in my book. As for ASP.NET being a right tool for the job- that's quite debateable. In all honesty, a Java Servlets and JSP engine is in the same class- in fact, it seems more robust (At least on the Linux side of things...) than IIS and ASP.NET is- or IIS/Apache and Mono's rendition of the same.

Having delegates seems to be nice, but I can't say that it produces better code- just easier to follow code. Until I see that it's better all the way around, I'm going to be sititng on the fence on that one...

--
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas