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The Case For Supporting and Using Mono
snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister argues in favor of Mono, asking those among the open source community who have 'variously described Mono as a trap, a kludge, or simply a waste of effort' to look past Miguel de Icaza and Mono's associations with Microsoft and give the open source implementation of .Net a second chance, as he himself has, having predicted Mono's demise at the hands of open source Java in 2006. Far from being just a clone of .Net for Linux, McAllister argues, Mono has been 'expanding its presence into exciting and unexpected new niches.' And for those who argue that 'developing open-source software based on Microsoft technologies is like walking into a lion's den,' McAllister suggests taking a look at the direction Mono is heading. The more Mono evolves, the less likely Microsoft is to use patent claims or some other dirty trick to bring down the platform."
Mono is in a precarious, teetering position. Somewhere between tepid and antagonistic reaction amongst professional and casual developers, a designer community that is seen as a puppet or apprentice to the hegemony, and not even a clear path forward for compatibility. Be distinct, or be identical, but there's no way to be both.
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Now that Java is open source, wouldn't it make more sense to use the JVM as the standard runtime, instead of something that "might" not get sued for copying the .NET runtime?
Java has already been made to run on .NET. I wonder if it'd really be that hard to get standardized C# running on the JVM?
Sorry, I will never trust Microsoft enough to put them in a position to control a key technology. So that means there is no discussing the issue as far as I'm concerned. There is NO rational basis to argue. I don't trust em.
And I don't trust the judgement of anyone who isn't themselves suspicious of Microsoft and Miguel's motives.
Mono is a trap if it is allowed to be deployed beyond a browser plugin to support .net content in the browser. Come the day my current distro of choice loses any finctionality when removing the mono packges I'll be running something different as soon as bittorrent can supply me a new install image. Again, that position is 100% non-negotiable. I have used binary drivers in the past, bought closed source apps and committed many 'sins' against the Church of GNU but this is one case where compromise simply isn't possible. They want us dead, you can't compromise with that.
Democrat delenda est
Qt is an application framework. It fixes every gripe developers have with C++.
Except for the fact that you are still programming in C++ which is bloated, monstrosity of a language.
Qt promotes clean and well-developed code that is easily ported to Windows, X11 (Linux et al), Mac, and Embedded (Linux sans-X11).
It doesn't seem to promote to well considering the amount of crappy C++ code written with Qt there is floating around.
Nokia is moving in to crush Java.
Considering Java's biggest adopted base is in server-side programming, I really doubt Qt is going to do all of jack and shit to change that. I seriously doubt many of those people writing server-side apps in Java would even have a use for Qt in their work. Sure it might pull away some of the desktop app developers, but they have been pretty much the minority when it came to the adoption of Java anyway.
Miguel has smacked around this stupid argument before. Mono is a relatively small effort. There are people certainly violating Microsoft's IP in areas like Samba and the myriad Exchange clients, which are a far bigger threat to Microsoft's revenue streams. Mono, if anything, improves their revenue streams, because it makes .NET more feasible for some developers who otherwise wouldn't consider it.
But they're going to go after Mono, right? Let's just ignore that Samba 4 is (supposedly) going to eat Microsoft's lunch on the AD side of things. They're gonna go right after Mono! Rar! BE SCARED! Because that makes so much sense for them to do, right? It's not cutting off their noses to spite their face at all.
I'm really starting to think that the main reason Slashdot gets pissy over Mono is because Microsoft doesn't "lose" because of it. It's a case where everybody wins. And Microsoft can't be allowed to benefit, oh teh nos. :(
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Then you are a fool.
Axioms of software design:
1. Algorithmic improvements will always trump optimizing execution speed.
2. Unless there is a hard requirement, development time is more important than raw performance.
3. Hardware is cheaper than developers.
4. A rich and flexible library is more useful and stable than custom coding for performance.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Speaking as a long time windows user and being fairly new at using Linux as a dedicated work-OS, I must say that that whole one-click .msi stuff is pretty damn awesome.
To elaborate the whole perception that users are dumb is pretty misguided. I'm not a dumb user, but even I like things to be easy. It's because (usually) I don't give much of a shit how the thing works, just that it does.
Before you declare that you're any different, think of how you put gas in your vehicle.. Do you care how the fuel pump works? If you're like me you only throw a fit when the clip that holds the fuel lever open is broken, but otherwise don't pay much attention.
See it's about motivation not intelligence. I do like using OSS because I think it's a GoodThing(tm) therefore I'm motivated to try it. It's a lot of the reason it took so long for Java to get a toe hold. "I just want to run PrettyWidgetBox, wtf is this JVM thing I have to have?" It's seen as ancillary or superfluous to the average user, and they don't often care enough to figure it out.
It kinda spoils one of my favorite quotes for me though regarding trash cans, bears, and tourists. Yellowstone added some trash cans with tricky openings to keep the bears out, but it turned out most of the tourists couldn't figure it out. The quote goes, "It turns out there is considerable overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." Which is unfortunately hogwash. The bears are motivated by survival to get in the trash can. The tourists are demotivated by apathy to take the time to figure out a trashcan. They just want to be able to put shit in the trash hole and be done with it. If they're frustrated for more than a few seconds they just throw it on the ground.
Question everything
Miguel has smacked around this stupid argument before. Mono is a relatively small effort. There are people certainly violating Microsoft's IP in areas like Samba and the myriad Exchange clients, which are a far bigger threat to Microsoft's revenue streams. Mono, if anything, improves their revenue streams, because it makes .NET more feasible for some developers who otherwise wouldn't consider it.
In the past, Microsoft has "cut off the air supply" of competitors. That's difficult to do with Linux as it is less a single-sourced product line than amorphous multi-vendor entity. Microsoft's strategy then has been to try and pigeon-hole Linux. But how to do that? You need to become a gate-keeper.
That's the fear over Mono. Gain developers. Gain support. Develop a dependency. Pull out the patents and seize the keys to that dependency. You are now the gatekeeper.
So what about SAMBA 4 and Exchange compatible clients? Don't they also support Microsoft products? That's win-win too, right? Surely they wouldn't go after those. Or would they? Who knows. Ballmer's threats lack detail.
And there's the key. You want to make your "everybody wins" technology widely accepted? Stifle the threats from a CEO who's continues to generate distrust in your company. No tin foil hat required.
Actually, I'm inclined to agree that WebApps generally suck when compared to a Windows App performing the same task. Obviously, WebApps have their advantages (easy distribution, usage monitoring, centralized access, no risk of rogue versions); but when the situation doesn't make it necessary to create a product as a WebApp, I think it's generally stupid to do so.
As for Mono, the product is a valiant effort, but I can't understand why you would run software on something other than its native platform. After the App is deployed, if it encounters any problems, you'll always have to wonder, is it the App, or is it Mono?
The difference between Mono & Samba is that C# is dev language.
If, for instance, Samba is sued into oblivion by Microsoft then we loose a single application. Yes, it's sad and everybody cries... but there's technical ways to solve that problem that are relatively doable - such as developing a new NAS network transport protocol that doesn't break any patents.
Alternatively, if Microsoft sues Mono into oblivion - and we've all been happily developing C# code for hundreds of applications - then it's going to be a total meltdown.
To be honest though - there's not much of a chance that either of those things are going to happen.
I like C# - it's a smart, clean language. I don't utilize much beyond the stock language (2.0 & generics) and don't see much need too.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
WinForms isn't dead. In some circles, I'd say WPF is stillborn, and if there's anything good that came out of it, it was in fact Silverlight.
In fact, I would say that while WPF has its plus sides, its got a few drawbacks as well. Its -really- slow compared to WinForms, the nested control architecture isn't as good, the layouts and sizing aren't as flexible, and worst of all, there's no datagrid.
I understand the inspiration. Microsoft tried to make a modern client gui toolkit that gives you some of what html does, but I frankly think they missed the mark. If anything, WPF will inspire the idea that developer's have choices in control and widget sets and that will lead developers to look at things like Qt and Java or even Webkit, as I have done.
This is my sig.