Microsoft Common Language Runtime To Be Cross-Platform

axlrosen alerts us to a Microsoft sleeper announcement from Mix07: a version of its Common Language Runtime will be available cross-platform. The Core CLR shows up as part of the Silverlight SDK that Redmond is open sourcing. From the blog posting: "The biggest Mix '07 announcement made on opening day of this week's show was one that Microsoft didn't call out in any of its own press releases: Microsoft is making a version of its Common Language Runtime available cross-platform. The CLR is the heart of Microsoft's .Net Framework programming model. So, by association, the .Net Framework isn't just for Windows any more."

Comments

Re:Be afraid, bitches....

[UnknowingFool]

From denial, to grudging acceptance, to surprised admiration, is how the process works, and whether you hate Microsoft or not, a few months playing with C# usually results in the comment "Damm, why didnt they do this with Java?"

After playing with C# for a few months, the answer I came up with is that C# happened after Java and (I would hope) improve upon Java in some ways. But I stopped using it because of a few reasons. The first of which was the cross platform problem. While Java wasn't open source at the time, it worked on a lot of different platforms. At best you could implement .NET with Mono but there was no guarantee that a change by MS would not negate the hard work of the Mono team. The second reasons is that MS has always been long on promises about technology and short on execution. I'm content to let some else be the guinea pig.

Re:"Cross platform"

[Marcion]

"Silverlight will plug into Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Safari browsers, meaning the slimmed-down CLR will run on these platforms, as well."

When a browser became a platform I'm not sure, when they started handing out the Web 2.0 Kool-Aid I suppose. It doesn't mention Linux so I reckon they mean Firefox on Windows.