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Novell Presents Mono Roadmap 53

Posted by timothy from the icon-shifting dept.
H0ek writes "Seems Mono is still moving along in spite of the Novell purchase. They present a nicely comprehensive roadmap. You can read the official Novell press release if you're into that kind of nonsense. All I can say is, go Miguel! Don't let the Man get you down!"
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Novell Presents Mono Roadmap More

Novell Presents Mono Roadmap

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  • So... what's the deal? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by msuzio ( 3104 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @12:32PM (#7511442) Homepage
    So, is this worth looking into for C# development at this point? Is it complete enough? I know next to nothing about C#, but I wouldn't mind learning it. I mostly do Web/Internet apps, and my flavor of choice at the moment is Java (servlets, not the horror that is EJB).

    I keep hearing about Mono lacking System.Windows.Forms -- is this a big deal? What else might it be missing (and is any of that going to be coming soon, like within 6 months?).

    I have a lot of my developers here asking about C#, and I wouldn't mind exploring it. Our enterprise division is probably going to move towards using it in new products (we mostly sell Windows-based apps), so being able to better work with their products and code might be nice too...

    So, uh... enlighten me.

    • Re:So... what's the deal? (Score:5, Informative)

      by raimundo ( 151879 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @12:40PM (#7511509)
      I've really enjoyed using C#, I definetly recommend taking some time to learn it. Effort is underway to implement S.W.F, but GTK# is already works cross platform. With Glade and the nicely designed Glade# stuff, using GTK# is a pleasure.

      As for web development, alot of work is going into making Mono a robust web development tool. It's still in the early stages, though. Haven't used it myself yet, but Ximian is comfortable enough with it to already be dog fooding.

    • Re:So... what's the deal? (Score:5, Informative)

      by borgboy ( 218060 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @01:44PM (#7512012)
      It [C#] is complete enough that Java(tm) is including [sun.com] features that already exist in C# in 1.5 - including enums, attributes, and iterator-aware looping.

      Otherwise, from a syntax standpoint, C# is pretty roughly equivilant to Java(tm). They are both OO languages (no flames about which is more OO, that's a dumb argument) that support single-inheritance, multiple interface implementation, and some component-oriented development paradigms (beans vs properties)

      C# is similiarly including [gotdotnet.com] more features such as anonymous methods and Generics which made it to 1.5 before C# will get them in 2.0 "Whidbey".

      I do serious, production work in both. IMHO, it isn't the language that is differentiating, it's the class libraries and the reach of the underlying platform that dictate the decision to use one vs the other.
      For Windows development, C#/.Net has a serious edge.

      For cross-platform server applications, Java(tm) is extremely strong.
      • My interest is less in whether C# itself is complete enough. I was wondering if the Mono implementation is going to include enough of the "goodies" that I can immediately start doing Web/Internet programming in C# using Mono only.

        I'm still not *quite* sure, but I'm tending to think the answer is 'yes'. Of course, now that I think of it, I'm not quite clear on *how* I would do this. Is there a C# equivalent to the 'servlet' architecture in Java (and does Mono include this)? Something that hopefully runs
        • Ah, should have just waited and added this to my post before. I see we have ASP.NET for Mono (kind of?):

          http://www.go-mono.com/asp-net.html

          Now, the next question I'll have to settle is, does ASP.NET not suck as bad as ASP under IIS used to? I never really liked the 'let's put our code in our pages' thing, I use JSPs in J2EE purely in the 'View' mode of an MVC architecture (like everyone else does, right? <grin>).

          Oh well, at least something to play with in between compiles of my 'real work'. Lets

          • Re:So... what's the deal? (Score:4, Funny)

            by borgboy ( 218060 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @03:50PM (#7513214)
            does ASP.NET not suck as bad as ASP under IIS used to?
            Nope. it really does not suck. It aint perfect, but damn it's a couple orders of magnitude better than ASP.
            I never really liked the 'let's put our code in our pages' thing
            Neither did I, or many people, for that matter. That is why a lot of serious developers compiled COM components to service requests. Now, asp.net is a step further in that direction by explicitly (depending on the way you develop) separating logic from presentation via MyPage.aspx files (presentation) vs MyPage.aspx.cs files (logic). Of course, as in Java(tm), you CAN do it wrong/easy by glomming everything into your aspx pages. Bad programmer! No donught!
          • ASP.NET is definitely ahead of vanilla ASP. It has separated code from display, which is good. It has also added web controls, which are very very powerful. It is also (mostly) compiled, which adds speed.

            However, it is still lacking in several areas:
            * lack of built-in page templating mechanism
            * datagrids are latebound (and possibly interpreted)
            * CSS support in Visual Studio is abysmal
            * the style of ASP.NET is "lots of custom pages" - it does not encourage large maintainable web sites.

            All in all, it is
    • Why do you need Mono to investigate C(I'm on a Mac, I don't know where the hash key is :p) Grab yourself a copy of the .NET Framework and get coding! You'll miss out on WYSIWYG RAD (and will in Mono as well), but at least you can explore the language....

  • "Don't let the man get your down"?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phaze3000 ( 204500 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @12:32PM (#7511444) Homepage
    Novell bought Ximian as much for Mono as anything else. This is a key part of Novell's future, I hardly think they are publishing the roadmap "in spite of the Novell purchase".

  • Novell Loves Mono (Score:3, Informative)

    by raimundo ( 151879 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @12:34PM (#7511455)
    Contrary to what the poster seems to think, Mono is becoming an important part of of Novell's strategy. Very shortly after Novell bought Ximian, its developers started showing up on the Mono lists and becoming involved in the community--without trying to exert any type of control. They even appear to have already started some important projects using Mono.

  • Is Mono a death threat to Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Captain Kirk ( 148843 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @12:35PM (#7511458) Homepage Journal
    If I understand this Cringely article correctly, .Net will make Microsoft hardware independent - I, Cringely [pbs.org]

    All of the MS products are being rewritten to be based on .Net. ISVs are being pushed towards .Net. In the case of VB developers, they simply don;t have a choice. For C++ developers, MS is constantly selling us the manageed C++ mantra. Even game developers are getting the .NEt pitch.

    If Mono works, then Microsofts own products, those of independent system developers and popular games will all be just as good on Linux, OSX, etc. as they will be on Windows. That should make MS very nervous. Go Miguel!

    • Re:Is Mono a death threat to Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @01:05PM (#7511722) Homepage Journal

      If Mono works, then Microsofts own products, those of independent system developers and popular games will all be just as good on Linux, OSX, etc. as they will be on Windows. That should make MS very nervous.

      As nice as the potential technology is behind .NET and Mono might be, I tend to be more worried that the interfaces to heavily-used class libraries and components will not be sufficiently specified. That is, not all of the behavior will be replicated if you simply drag `n drop your Visual developed application from the latest Longhorn server over to a cheap Linux box. Does that even happen in the Java world, where cross-platform portability is constantly trumpeted?

      Differentiating themselves from commodity Linux platforms and leveraging their strength in Windows seems to be more consistent with Microsoft's business objectives.

      • Does that even happen in the Java world, where cross-platform portability is constantly trumpeted?

        It still exists if you just want to stick to the base functionality. The problem becomes the limited amount of control you have over your applications look and feel. To really leverage that functionality, you need to get down and dirty with the operating system.

        It still can be done (i.e. QT), but takes a huge amount of developer effort and time.
        • "really leveraging your applications look and feel" sounds to me like code for "it'll be ugly as shit and look nothing like the rest of my applications". Some people prefer things like Java or Qt because the app looks the same on all platforms. I prefer that my app look (and act) native on all platforms, which is why I use wxWindows [wxwindows.org]. And it's free!
          • Not only that, but you can use wxWindows to make it look the same on all platforms using the Gtk backend. Thus if you write your app using wxWindows, you can pick at will between making it look the same on all platforms or making it look native on all platforms.
    • First of all, I do think open source community should continue embracing C# as they've done in Gtk#. And I think .NET have great potential to compete with Java at server side market, and will certainly dominate Win32 desktop client market for years to come.

      However, what I strongly object is that OSS community trying to adop .NET framework and wasting their time and talent in such project as Mono.

      As you can see from the roadmap Novell published, any attempt to reimplement .NET platform will be endless game
    • then Microsofts own products, those of independent system developers and popular games will all be just as good on Linux, OSX, etc. as they will be on Windows.

      For Microsoft's own products, I think that this is very unlikely. MS has quite a few aces up their sleeve that they can use to use to make it very hard to use MS apps on non-MS operating systems. Games are likely to be problematic also until the marketshare of GNU/Linux on home user desktops is big enough to make games vendors care about portable

  • Anyone with some *BSD-specific notes? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by puff the barbarian ( 709196 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @01:24PM (#7511869)
    From the Mono FAQ:
    Question 52: What architectures does Mono support?


    Mono today ships with a Just-in-Time compiler for x86-based systems. It is tested regularly on Linux, FreeBSD and Windows (with the XP/NT core).

    So okay, does anybody know how well it runs on Dragonfly?

  • Hate to beat a dead horse, but.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Captain Rotundo ( 165816 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @02:06PM (#7512178) Homepage
    I hold no ill will toward Ximian or Miguel, they have done great things, but I still am completely unconvinced by Mono.

    I've used Mono a little (Dashboard and others) and qutie frankly I am not impressed with C#, and I am not convinced of the "common language" nonsense. What does strike me is how it seems no different or better than the technology Java introduced years ago. Add to that the fact that I don't think anyone can successfully play catchup with MS, and that I think MS patent lawyers will pounce the second Mono looks credible to a .Net or C# developer.

    Why not re-implement a Free Java clone with the same resources. Java is more 'open' (maybe not officially with standards but in practice for sure) Java is here NOW, and Java has developers now. Not to mention the stigma of cloning MS wouldn't be there to scare away people like me. - Not to mention the things in .Net that are very windows specific that it is either hard or useless to port to a different platform (who wants a VM language that requires a windows emulator to run? why not just write a windows program and use full on Wine at that point?)

    I really hope Mono becomes something great, but I simply don't want to invest my time in a platform that appears will remain a bastard step-son to .Net for the foreseeable future. On the other hand Sun seems to have an interrest in a GNU/Linux desktop at this point, and may be coming around to wanting a full fledged java platform on Linux.

    • Re:Hate to beat a dead horse, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DukeyToo ( 681226 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @03:04PM (#7512724) Homepage
      .NET is very Windows-UNspecific, not at all what you would expect from MS. It has some Microsoft specific stuff, (eg. accessing windows registry) but that is generally relegated to a separate "Microsoft" namespace.

      In addition, you seem to think that .NET is all about Windows Forms. It is not. For me, that is the least interesting aspect. You can write console applications, or server deamons, or web services, or DLLs for re-use by multiple UIs.

      Like Java, C# is here NOW, and C# developers are here now. As are VB.NET developers, as fast as they can convince their management to change. As a platform, .NET has a large amount of support, from the people who write software for Microsoft platforms. I assure you, there are very many.

      For myself, I develop specifically for Windows, and .NET has to be very important to my career. And Mono is too, because it opens up a whole new market for my MS-centric skills - suddenly, I have a chance of telling management that they are no longer tied to MS because their business relies on my Windows program. And that is very exciting.

      If you are a Java specialist, there is really no need to stray, for now. However, Microsoft will do everything it can to make it easier and easier for you to migrate your skills to .NET, and at some point in the future it may become worth your while.
    • Just look at the Mono roadmap. .Net on non-Microsoft platforms will always be just a bit (or maybe a lot) behind .Net on Windows. There is simply no reason not to use Java. With a fast VM (such as IBM's) and a decent native GUI toolkit (such as SWT) you can write full-featured high-performance applications with the advantage of portability. If you want web services, use J2EE. The next version of J2EE can provide services to .Net clients!

      You don't lose out by choosing Java, you only gain freedom from Mi
    • Why not re-implement a Free Java clone with the same resources. Java is more 'open'

      Java is open? Are you kidding?

      Without EJB Java is useless for complex applications. But with EJB all other languages are useless. I don't see any "openness" of Java here.

      With Mono I can use any other language that has a dotNet library for it. And many languages have it already. This is what I consider as "openness".

      • Java is fully open. The spec of the VM publically available, and anyone can implement a Java compiler (GNU have one - look at GJC and the Classpath project). Sun don't provide an open source Java compiler and VM, but neither does Microsoft for C#. What they do provide is a free high-performance VM for Windows, Solaris and Linux.

        EJBs (Entity Java Beans) are a very small part of Java. There are thousands of client-side applications and tens of thousands of websites that use other Java technologies such a

        • Re:Java is open (Score:3, Informative)

          by axxackall ( 579006 )
          EJBs (Entity Java Beans) are a very small part of Java.

          You are pretty new with java, aren't you?

          EJB stands for Enterprise Java Beans (not Entity beans, which are just a part of EJB, but not everything). The way how things are designed makes Java without EJB useless for Enterprise applications. And EJB is very far away from being small part of Java. EJB actually do help to integrate various applications in an enterprise to work together, in a same (similar) way as .Net does. Using Java without EJB for su

          • I don't think developing enterprise applications or even integrating them madate use of EJB. In most of the cases, a well designed servlet-based application which is load balanced using session affinitity scales well enough. That's why many of the developers turn their eyes to such alternatives as Spring, Hibernate, JDO and etc. And if you only use session beans - which has become very prevalent design choice nowadays - it does not offer much than load-balanced servlet applications anyway.

      • Re:Java is not open! (Score:2, Insightful)

        by mcbevin ( 450303 )
        If Java is 'useless for complex applications' without EJB, then I'd say Java is pretty much useless based on my experiences with EJB. Luckily however, theres also a thing called JDO which does what EJBs should do, but a lot better and simpler.

        To answer those that say C# is no better than Java, I'd personally choose developing a GUI with C# + Visual Studio over Swing any day. C#'s XML handling I also find a lot nicer that any of the DOM/JAXB etc alternatives available with Java. And C#s auto-boxing and unbo
      • What does make you think Java is less 'open' without EJB? I think Java is far more open because of JCP and third party implementations, and great number of OSS projects developed with it. Do you think Mono is an open source project? Maybe their license is open source, but they don't have any choice about .NET framework itself except for blindly copying what MS does which does not seem open at all to me. And BTW, if you really think Java is more 'open' with EJB support, you have number of open source imple

  • Microsoft does not like Mono or Linux (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GreatDrok ( 684119 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @02:55PM (#7512622) Journal
    Yeah, I know, big surprise.

    A couple of years ago I visited MS in Redmond to see if there was some way my then company could work with MS. We had a very encouraging two hour discussion and I was told that MS would very much like to work with us. I had demo'd our software on a Linux laptop running KDE (so I don't think they noticed it wasn't Windows) and mentioned that as we were a Linux based company we would use Mono to integrate with .NET. The response was "We don't work with Linux companies, I'll get you a cab" and that was that.

    While it is clear that they don't like Linux, I think it is also apparent that they will not condone anyone using Linux/Mono as a development platform instead of Windows/.NET and they will very obviously move to kill it by incompatibility as soon as it shows the slightest chance of being a threat.
    • What surprises me is not that they sent you packing, but rather that it surprises you (apparently), and that you even bothered to try. Why in the world would you have expected Microsoft to greet a Linux-based company with enthusiasm, regardless of what you're making/selling/proposing/etc...?

  • But there *can't* be a Mono roadmap (Score:4, Funny)

    by cabalamat2 ( 227849 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @04:09PM (#7513402) Homepage Journal

    Mono is an open source project, and Steve Ballmer says open source doesn't have roadmaps.

    I believe everything Steve and Bill tell me, so this "roadmap" obviously doesn't exist.

  • ROTOR updates? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does Microsoft update their open source C#/.Net that was initially released on FreeBSD, called ROTOR, along with all the new stuff they put into C#?

    (ROTOR was never meant to provide all services in the commercial .Net platform, but it was supposed to be a complete C# compiler and runtime.)

    --
    jonmartin.solaas@mail.link.no

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