Xamarin's First Mono Release - Proof of Life!

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Xamarin's First Mono Release - Proof of Life!

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 4, 2011 @08:03AM from the congratulations-to-miguel dept.

mikejuk writes "After striking out on their own the former Mono team, now reconstituted as Xamarin, has just issued its first release of Mono. This is essentially a minor release with lots of bug fixes but it's proof of life for the Mono project after being dropped by Attachmate."

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Kudos by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 08:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

Kudos to the devs for persevering. Fuck all the zealot haters here.
1. Re:Kudos by SiggyTheViking · 2011-08-04 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  Kudos to the devs for persevering. Fuck all the zealot haters here.
  Why are you so rude to me, just because I hate zealots?
  
  And yes, kudos to the devs from this c# monkey.
2. Re:Kudos by Samuraid · 2011-08-04 12:44 · Score: 2
  
  Kudos to the devs for persevering. Fuck all the zealot haters here.
  Aye! Protoss, all the way!
  But in all seriousness...as a C# developer, I've spent the morning despairing about Windows 8's seeming lack of .NET support. This news is a small, but welcome, glimmer of hope. Kudos to Xamarin for striving to give .NET the platform support and reach that Microsoft never gave.
  
  --
  if ($question !~ m/bb|[^b]{2}/i) { die(); }
3. Re:Kudos by garatheus · 2011-08-04 20:05 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, aren't they including more of the research being done on their research labs' Singularity project? Writing a full OS in [mostly] managed code?
  
  Not sure when these kinds of projects will ever really see the light of day, but to say .NET is dead / dying is probably a bit near-sighted...
4. Re:Kudos by Samuraid · 2011-08-05 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  I don't believe the FUD. There's a big difference between "seeming lack of", and actual "lack of". Microsoft has simply not discussed .NET support. Hopefully the discussions at //build/ will elucidate Microsoft's plans and resolve any uncertainty.
  
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  if ($question !~ m/bb|[^b]{2}/i) { die(); }
Re:Does Anyone Care? by h4rr4r · 2011-08-04 08:18 · Score: 1

Microsoft probably does.
"Proof of Life" by XanC · 2011-08-04 08:21 · Score: 3, Informative

This "Proof of Life" headline being folded up right next to the Mars announcement got me briefly very excited.
1. Re:"Proof of Life" by eparker05 · 2011-08-04 08:29 · Score: 2
  
  I think people voted this article up just to plant the suggestion.
Just so you know. by Dragonshed · 2011-08-04 08:39 · Score: 2

Yes, someone cares.
Other useful answers include:
Yes, someone still builds (good) products in C#.
Yes, .net on mobile is actually useful.
Yes, this thing has legs.
1. Re:Just so you know. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 08:46 · Score: 1
  
  Translation: I care because I learned C#
2. Re:Just so you know. by PCM2 · 2011-08-04 10:03 · Score: 2
  
  Actually, I don't think he is. Unity3D is a pretty popular cross-platform game development environment. Guess what? It uses Mono for game scripting. Just because you can't think of a use for a tool doesn't mean there is no use for a tool.
  
  --
  Breakfast served all day!
Re:God.. please... by H0p313ss · 2011-08-04 08:40 · Score: 1

Is this an omen suggesting that the Zombie Apocalypse is upon us? Or is that Duke Nukem, I'm so confused.

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Xamarin's First Moon - Proof of Life! by phrostie · 2011-08-04 08:49 · Score: 1

at least that is what i thought it said
Re:Does Anyone Care? by The+Moof · 2011-08-04 08:54 · Score: 1

No. The only people who've been saying that are spreading FUD.
Re:Thanks? by diegocg · 2011-08-04 08:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

I do care. There are huge amounts of .NET code out there, and being able to avoid a OS/runtime lock-in is a Good Thing. I remember the 90's, when windows was a monopoly because it was the only working win32 implementation...
Well *I* care!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 09:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

I love C#, i have coded in numerous languages over the years (Basic, Pascal, COBOL, C, C++, Java, C#, JavaScript probably more i've forgotten) but for me C# is the cleanest and best thought-out. Yes, it was a rip-off of Java, but lets face it, Microsoft fixed and improved some of the shitness with Java!
The only thing I didn't like was being locked into a Windows platform, and guess what.. Mono fixes that!
So good luck to them, and long live Mono!
1. Re:Well *I* care!!! by Toonol · 2011-08-04 09:31 · Score: 2
  
  I agree, C# is a nicely designed language. I just don't see Mono ever gaining traction, though. Most C# .NET applications are a pain to port over, because there are some APIs that will always be missing... and I don't foresee many developers using it to write Linux-specific applications. .Net fills a niche in Windows, but I don't really see that niche in Linux.
2. Re:Well *I* care!!! by PCM2 · 2011-08-04 10:07 · Score: 1
  
  It seemed like there was more momentum behind Mono back when it seemed as if Sun was never seriously going to open-source Java. Now the main debate seems to be whether you prefer C# or Java (and most non-Windows programmers prefer Java because they've had no experience with C#), and whether you trust Microsoft not to sink Mono with patent claims vs. whether you trust Oracle not to sink Java into the ocean in a giant safe that only Larry Ellison knows the combination to.
  
  --
  Breakfast served all day!
3. Re:Well *I* care!!! by msobkow · 2011-08-04 12:45 · Score: 1
  
  I like C#/.Net, but playing "catch up" on features that have been out for years is really a crippling hinderance.
  Best of luck to the Mono team. I will continue trying the new releases in hopes that it matures enough to be a truly cross-platform environment.
  
  --
  I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
4. Re:Well *I* care!!! by tiedemann · 2011-08-04 18:30 · Score: 1
  
  For us working with web stuff there really isn't anything important missing from Mono.
5. Re:Well *I* care!!! by dotancohen · 2011-08-04 22:15 · Score: 1
  
  Coding web stuff in Mono? Care to elaborate? What server are you using?
  
  --
  It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Why the Hatred for Mono? by uiucgrad · 2011-08-04 09:13 · Score: 2

I have never really understood the hatred for Mono here on /. Like any other language it has its advantages and disadvantages. Each person or company choosing to do development takes a risk in the language / platform they decide to use. As long as that person or company feels comfortable managing those risks it seems like that should be enough.
In my years on Slashdot I have not noticed the developers of Wine being vilified in even remotely the same way as de Icaza, despite the obvious parallels.
1. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by mla_anderson · 2011-08-04 09:23 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Mostly because the site has been taken over by mindless Microsoft haters. Instead of promoting FOSS, they bash anything with a slight connection to MS (sorry M$). Mono is a really nice product and C# is really much nicer than Java, but since Mono is based on .NET and C# is from Microsoft they get castigated here.
  I considered starting my kids on C#, but decided Pascal is still a better teaching language. However once they've got the basics of programming down and I want to start in on OOP I'll move them to C# on Mono (MS doesn't make .NET for my platform).
  
  --
  Sig is on vacation
2. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by Lunix+Nutcase · 2011-08-04 09:29 · Score: 1
  
  And yet Microsoft hasn't raised a single lawsuit. Now, Java, on the other hand, has been an amusing source of patents suits recently.
3. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by Lunix+Nutcase · 2011-08-04 09:37 · Score: 1
  
  Why would they?
  No clue. I'm not the one who constantly spreads FUD about how Microsoft is always imminently going to sue Linux distros out of existence for bundling Mono and Mono apps or devs for using it to create apps with.
4. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by mla_anderson · 2011-08-04 09:40 · Score: 2
  
  I've heard this over and over but haven't actually seen hard evidence for that. The best I've seen is that the Windows Forms implementation may have patent issues. Do you have better information?
  
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  Sig is on vacation
5. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by Lunix+Nutcase · 2011-08-04 10:01 · Score: 1
  
  Great. Microsoft has made zero threats against Mono and has in fact done just the opposite. They've made countless promises to not sue, have had their own staff help the Mono project repeatedly and have supplied tons of documentation to them and have made agreements with Novell to cover the Mono implementation from issues. But yeah, let's keep beating the 7 year old drum of how Microsoft is imminently going to sue over patents over Mono yet has every year NOT don that. If you spread the FUD long enough it has to come true, right?
6. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by PCM2 · 2011-08-04 10:13 · Score: 1
  
  And you wonder why we won't touch mono or c# with a ten foot pole, and why we think Miguel is an evil little Billy G cocksuck?
  I do wonder a little bit, since "Billy G" doesn't even work for that company anymore and hasn't since 2008. He sits on the board, but you would too if that many billions of dollars of your money was tied up in it.
  
  --
  Breakfast served all day!
7. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by Desler · 2011-08-04 12:35 · Score: 1
  
  For the money, which category of action would you put money on/pick?
  1. Promises not to sue
  2. Actions speak louder than words
  Public promises not to sue and explicit help to Mono development would lead to a clear case of Laches against Microsoft filing suit.
8. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by tokul · 2011-08-04 16:09 · Score: 1
  
  Mostly because the site has been taken over by mindless Microsoft haters
  
  They are not mindless. They made an educated decision based on their experience with Microsoft and other commercial software vendors.
9. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by 7-Vodka · 2011-08-04 16:49 · Score: 1
  
  I'll tell you what, unless you're a pre-teen, there has been plenty of evidence of microsoft being a shithead, eat-your-baby, fuck-their-friends-wife-in-the-ass type of corporation. It should be pretty clear to you by now why people hate that corporation. If you're just being obtuse, go fucking google this shit or even just hit search on this page.
  The only part I really take offense in your post is that you call M$ haters mindless. We're absolutely normal people who don't have the memory of a goldfish.
  And you know what? With what they have pulled and tried to pull, they deserve all this hatred for the rest of our lives. Fuck them and Fuck you for being so ignorant.
  
  --
  Liberty.
10. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by codepunk · 2011-08-04 17:48 · Score: 1
  
  This is /. not c:\
  
  --
  
  Got Code?
11. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by jjohn_h · 2011-08-04 18:39 · Score: 1
  
  >>>
  They've made countless promises to not sue, have had their own staff help the Mono project repeatedly and have supplied tons of documentation to them and have made agreements with Novell to cover the Mono implementation from issues.
  >>>
  So they cannot sue SuSe. And they cannot sue Redhat
  because Redhat does not use Mono. Whom are they going to sue if it has got to be profitable? They just need the FUD.
12. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by Richard_at_work · 2011-08-04 20:20 · Score: 1
  
  Thankyou for proving the GPs point...
13. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by gbjbaanb · 2011-08-04 21:32 · Score: 1
  
  Good choice for Pascal. It was oiginally created as a teaching language IIRC.
  For OOP though, the terchniques are the same for C++, Java and C# so unless you want them to learn the C#/.NET specific parts (eg WPF, WCF, all the wizard generated bumpf) then or learn how to use Visual Studio, you might as well show them Java instead. The tooling should be better for your platform and I'm sure you can find better example code.
  Of course, if you want to use something 'unnatural' for your platform, go for Oberon. no-one uses it, but they'll learn OO in a pascal environment. Then they can decide on a practical language when they need to.
14. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by ElusiveJoe · 2011-08-04 22:13 · Score: 1
  
  Mono is not a language.
15. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by dotancohen · 2011-08-04 22:32 · Score: 1
  
  This is /. not c:\
  The name comes from the days we would have to say "h t t p colon slash slash slashdot dot o r g". It does not come from the POSIX current directory.
  
  --
  It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
16. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by drinkypoo · 2011-08-04 23:48 · Score: 1
  
  Until Microsoft moves on to the next great thing the hate will continue. Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me. Screw me 3407292 times, you must be Microsoft.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
17. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by losinggeneration · 2011-08-05 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  For OOP though, the terchniques are the same for C++, Java and C# so unless you want them to learn the C#/.NET specific parts (eg WPF, WCF, all the wizard generated bumpf) then or learn how to use Visual Studio, you might as well show them Java instead. The tooling should be better for your platform and I'm sure you can find better example code.
  Well, if "MS doesn't make .NET for (his) platform", Visual Studio is totally out of the question. He's most likely on a *nix; so, he'd most likely go with something like MonoDevelop (GTK#) for an IDE and one of these may be chosen for a GUI toolkit (when he eventually gets to that): http://www.mono-project.com/Gui_Toolkits
  If he wants to stick with Pascal, he could also consider Oxygene which also runs on top of the CLR/Mono. This has the advantage of using all the classes already available in Mono, but with a similar syntax.
18. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by dotancohen · 2011-08-05 09:13 · Score: 1
  
  Is the POSIX root directory not simply / ? I suppose that the extra dot would then land you right back in the same place, but you wouldn't call the POSIX root directory /. if someone asked where it was.
  
  --
  It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
19. Re:Why the Hatred for Mono? by gottabeme · 2011-08-05 19:21 · Score: 1
  
  No, he didn't prove that MS-haters are mindless--he simply proved that he, himself, is rude.
  There may be good people who work for Microsoft, but Microsoft, as a whole, is nothing less than evil, and has been for a long time--probably forever. Apple's not much better, nor is Amazon. I'm afraid the list goes on and on.
  Microsoft has less of a dominant position in some markets than it used to have--I guess that's why fewer people seem to hate it. It's no less evil, though. It seems to me that anyone who doesn't admit Microsoft's evilness either has his head in the sand of denial, or is selfish and greedy, supporting MS because it helps his bottom line. Or, I suppose he could be ignorant and doesn't care.
  Really, what justification is there for supporting Microsoft, other than scratching each others' backs?
  
  --
  "Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Re:Does Anyone Care? by turgid · 2011-08-04 09:15 · Score: 1, Offtopic

Slashdot has always been full of linux/java fanboys
The MS-apologists appeared back about when XP came out and drowned out the Linux fanboys. There have been very few Java fanboys on here, ever.
Now, IBM fanboys....

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Stick Men
Re:Does Anyone Care? by PinchDuck · 2011-08-04 09:34 · Score: 2

Wow, that is a pretty harsh response. I don't really have a dog in that race, since I'm mostly a web app developer anyway. I use whatever my client has picked as their preferred stack in the background. Classic ASP, ASP.net, java, php, or pure C# talking to Extjs. Whatever. In any case, the only real posts I've seen about MS walking away from .net have all been on boards with a bias towards MS. To say that the Linux/Java people are behind it is kind of silly. They may be repeating it and amplifying it on places like Slashdot, but they didn't originate the posts. Personally I hope that MS sticks with C# and .net, it is a nice, robust ecosystem. If MS is 100% behind .net, then somehow a mis-perception is starting to erupt and they need to get on top of it.
Re:Thanks? by hedwards · 2011-08-04 10:02 · Score: 4, Funny

I think you're being kind of generous there. I remember Windows from that period of time, and I can vouch for the fact that it wasn't a working win32 implementation.
Re:Does Anyone Care? by hairyfeet · 2011-08-04 12:45 · Score: 1

Exactly MR AC, all three techs, .NET, Silverlight, and HTML 5 have their place. .NET for the backend, Silverlight for cool GUI heavy stuff like this which for those that don't have Silverlight/Moonlight is an entire Web OS in a browser, and HTML 5 for quick web apps. Why everyone thinks everything has to be an "X killer" is beyond me. probably a combo of buzzword bingo and page view rankings I suppose.
As for TFA I'm sure the guys out their writing .NET code, or who have plenty of .NET code in their company are quite happy about this. One would think having more choices would be celebrated here, but I guess that isn't true unless it comes from teh Google.

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Re:Does Anyone Care? by exomondo · 2011-08-04 14:34 · Score: 2

If MS is 100% behind .net, then somehow a mis-perception is starting to erupt and they need to get on top of it.
Im pretty sure people on whom it actually would have an impact are well aware that the only thing with an uncertain future is Silverlight, but of course people who don't know what they're talking about for some reason assume Silverlight == .Net.
Mono on Android/iOS costs $399 (each)?? by mrpacmanjel · 2011-08-04 21:04 · Score: 1

I've been folowing the mono project for years and think it is a great open source project.
However, if I want to write .net apps for Android I have to pay for the privilege?
The SDK for Android is free and fully supported yet I'm expected to $399 for mono on android?
I know the major benefit is supposed to be a "cross-platform" development environment but charging for the runtime seems a bit braindead to me!
By all means charge for the other stuff (e.g. IDE integration, support and updates) that's fair but "locking away" the runtime is a bit cheeky and limiting adoption.
Re:Thanks? by ByOhTek · 2011-08-09 00:26 · Score: 1

Or MacOS, FreeBSD...

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