Ars Technica Tours Mono 465
Kevin Francis writes "Over the coming weeks, Ars Technica will be taking a look at Mono, including a basic introduction to Mono, MonoDevelop, and C#, and then branching out to GTK#, database access, ASP.NET, advanced C# topics, and conclude with a discussion of the future of Mono, and the C# standard. All the examples will work on Windows and Linux, with OSX support coming shortly. Part 1 of the series is online now."
looks promissing but what is it really against? (Score:4, Informative)
What are the methods currently used by GIMP, OpenOffice, Mozilla among others that already support multiple OS's?
Maybe Ill start learning coding with this and kill more birds with the same shot
Re:Will the coders use it though? (Score:5, Informative)
The app clearly has to be written with crossplatform execution in mind. (I know this goes for c and java too, but some people seem to think they will run office on mono in the future.).
You need to steer clear of anything that depends on a platform.
- if you define a path, make sure you use path.combine or path.directoryseparatorchar instead of a / of \.
- don't depend on environment variables
- pay attention to casing, don't say "file.ext" when it's "File.ext"
I know it should be ovbious to any cross platform dev out there, but I just thought I'd bust some bubbles with some of the less informed.
Re:Libraries (Score:5, Informative)
ECMA-335 Common Language Infrastructure [ecma-international.org] (of which
Re:RAD tools (Score:5, Informative)
Re:RAD tools (Score:2, Informative)
Re:blech! (Score:4, Informative)
We have Open Standards and Open Source for that sort of thing already.
We also have Java for the write-once-run-anywhere thing. I fail to believe that .NET/Mono/.GNU will be better or solve any new problems that have not already been solved.
There's even an official Windows port ofn Java, so I'm told...
Re:Bull (Score:5, Informative)
So...
Personally, I think the C# folks make too much of a big deal about the mandatory exception handling in Java. Heard a fellow from Microsoft say "Frequently, Java folks just put an empty catch() block to catch the exception they know won't happen, so why make it mandatory?"
I've got bad news for you. I find situations like that about once a week when auditing my programmers' code, and it's almost always a situation that -can- happen, but the programmer couldn't see it.
Don't trust the programmer. I know, I am one.
Re:looks promissing but what is it really against? (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, Gimp is not C++, it's written in C. And Gimp contains very little to no platform-specific code. Gimp uses Gtk and Glib as portability layers. The Gimp maintainer strives to have as little platform-specific code as possible. He even wants to eventually get rid of all of the remaining little #ifdefs.
Gtk and Glib are also not littered with #ifdefs. Gtk uses Gdk as portability layer. Gdk has several implementations: X, Win32 GDI, DirectFB, etc. An implementation is automatically chosen by the configure script (or something like that, not really sure about this one), but there are very little #ifdefs.
I don't know about Glib.
"The theory is that with
My theory is that it will end up with something like Java or all the other portability frameworks for C/C++. The simple things are portable but when you want to do some more complex things, you suddenly face the limitations. And you also have limited ways to really integrate with the platform's desktop.
Re:And how is this better than wxWidgets/wxPython? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:RAD tools (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Will the coders use it though? (Score:5, Informative)
Right. Of course that's all about to change - from the Java 1.5 ("5") new features site [sun.com]:
You still need to deal with exceptions - that's a bad thing?
Re:Why should "cross platform" always mean Java/.N (Score:1, Informative)
No, Python is a SCRIPTING languate [sic]. It is already being used in places where it makes sense to embed a scripting language. Website programming, app automation and some Linux distros use Python to build a lot of their tools. For the latter, I don't think Python is a good choice but that's another thread entirely.
Java is a programming language. The differences between it and Python (as seen here [ferg.org]) are largely semantic/structural. I would also add that the Java SDK supplies developers with FAR more common libraries than Python does which tends to cut development time. Semantically, Java is a pure-OO language. Python is not.
Furthermore, a lot of the verboseness and non-compactness of Java provides a lot of flexability. Opening a file in Python is a one liner. In Java you need 2 or more objects and 3+ lines of code. But you have much greater control over how the descripter is read.
What I don't understand is that when people are talking about "cross platform" programming, it almost always is about Java or
Maybe because nobody has a mainstream cross platform app that is written in a scripting language? Where as Java already has lots of exposure in that area thanks to Applets and other applications.
I don't think you can think of
it's not either/or (Score:3, Informative)
As languages, C# and Python are simply different. Both have their uses, and neither is better. C#, for example, lets you do pointer manipulation and its implementations are efficient enough even for writing low-level loops. Also, people find C#'s static type checking useful for long-lived, multi-programmer projects. If all your needs are met by Python, consider yourself lucky; other people's needs are not that simple.
In terms of libraries, you can have Python/Gtk+, Python/wxWindows, C#/Gtk+, and C#/wxWindows, and all four exist (C#/wxWindows isn't all that far along yet, but people are working on it). So, your choice of toolkit and your choice of language are orthogonal.
Re:Why should "cross platform" always mean Java/.N (Score:4, Informative)
Not necessarily. People have targetted other languages for the Java runtime, including Python (Jython) and Scheme (Kawa). Basically, as long as you can spit out Java bytecode it doesn't matter language what you compiled to get it. Same basic idea with
Re:Just a bit biased.... (Score:1, Informative)
A couple of key differences....
-
- Everything in
-
object which can be stack allocated. In Java, native types can be allocated on the stack, but the user cannot define new native types, and there are no methods assigned to the existing native types. All custom objects must be heap allocated.
- In Java, every method is virtual by default. In
-
-
-
Re:Evaluation applies to any VM language (Score:3, Informative)
Except those
A. Polymorphic instruction set
In JVM most instructions have the types of their arguments hardcoded (faster interpretation but harder to create a compiler to emit the correct one)
In CLR has polymorphic instruction set, only the result type is hardcoded (compilers have much easier job but JITer has more work to do)
B. Extensible convention for emitted members using attributes
C. Assembly packaging vs JAR (zip file) packaging (can also contain native code or preJITed code)
D. In JVM you are unable to encode
1) enumerations (all)
2) structures (records in Delphi, struct in C)
3) unions (C and Delphi)
4) variant records (only C)
5) overflow sensitive arithmetic on integer data types (all)
6) reference parameters (var in Delphi)
7) function pointers (all)
8) extern functions with calling convention (all)
9) variable length arguments (array of in Delphi, C
10) tail calls (only Scheme IIRC)
11) Unsafe code (eg C, Delphi pointer/memory manipulation)
so the compiler writer that targets JVM must emulate all the above (using Java actually) resulting functional crippling or degraded efficiency
E. JVM has an 64K limit in branching, making compiler writing more difficult than CLR
Re:And how is this better than wxWidgets/wxPython? (Score:4, Informative)
I've been playing around with (wx)Python as well lately and it rocks!
Especiall combined with:
Boa Constructor:
'A cross platform Python IDE and wxPython GUI Builder. It offers visual frame creation and manipulation, an object inspector, many views on the source like object browsers, inheritance hierarchies, doc string generated html documentation, an advanced debugger and integrated help.'
http://boa-constructor.sourceforge.net/
And the Twisted framework for network programming. http://www.twistedmatrix.com/
"Twisted Matrix Laboratories is a distributed group of open-source developers working on Twisted, an event-driven networking framework written in Python and licensed under the LGPL. Twisted supports TCP, UDP, SSL/TLS, multicast, Unix sockets, a large number of protocols (including HTTP, NNTP, IMAP, SSH, IRC, FTP, and others), and much more."
I've now got a fully asynchronous and very fast custom server running.. in less then a day from a clean start with the Python language!
I really recommend checking this out!! ^_^
Re:Will the coders use it though? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, you have correctly tracked down the source of that misconception. It's an easy misconception to have, given what the Mono project writes about itself.
Now, dig down a little deeper and go to the downloads [ximian.com]. What do you see? A "Mono Stack" on the left, consisting of OSS libraries and APIs, and a
Now, turn to the FAQ:
What does that tell you?
Why is the Mono project seemingly saying one thing and delivering another? Well, in part, it's because the term ".NET" is really ambiguous. In part, it's because where their money comes from and where their commercial interests are (they aren't doing this out of religion, they are in it for commercial purposes).
So, your confusion is understandable. I wish the Mono project were clearer on their front page, too, but I suspect they have reasons for what they are doing. Either way, you should really dig a little deeper.
Re:Will the coders use it though? (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, there's a new method in 1.5 to get all the env vars...
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/la
http://java
Re:Why should "cross platform" always mean Java/.N (Score:3, Informative)
In short, Python can do pretty much anything Java or Mono is likely able to do. In addition, it's faster and easier to code in than most "programming" languages, largely due to dynamic variable typing.
For developer friendliness Mono and Java are a step up from C/C++, but languages like Python (and probably Ruby, though I haven't used it) have potential to be even more.
Re:Why should "cross platform" always mean Java/.N (Score:3, Informative)
Java compiles to bytecode, Python compiles to bytecode. If being a "scripting language" means that you're not *forced* to compile to bytecode to run a program, then aren't scripting languages simply a superior form of "programming languages"?
Verbosity in Java doesn't translate to flexibility. It may occasionally translate to more control, but that's rare. Most of the time, it's just due to the inflexibility of the language. Conversely, just because Python provides an easy way of dealing with files doesn't mean that it lacks flexibility. What kind of low-level things can you do with Java that you can't do with fileno and fcntl in python?
Commercial applications use Python and Java. Both are extensively used on servers (like Google uses Python for example). Java may have more desktop GUI use, but Python is used as a scripting engine in many applications, including games.
As for Java being pure-OO and Python not being pure OO? Mwhahahahahaha.
Although the syntax may be somewhat ugly, even integers in Python are objects. Try that in Java. Java has Integer objects and 'int' types. That's not even slightly OO, let alone "pure" OO.
Having said all that, I don't even like Python. I happen to be a big fan of Ruby, and am not at all used to defending Python. I think Python's syntax is ugly. I think significant whitespace for indentation of loops and conditionals is a huge mistake, making the code really inflexible when it comes to copying and pasting. I think it's requirement to pass around self when defining methods within a class is simply stupid. And the few remnants of non-ooness bug me, like len(str) instead of str.len() On the other hand, there's even more I dislike about Java. Java is way too verbose, and incredibly inflexible in a lot of areas. By making things like 'int' types rather than classes, it defeats a lot of the purposes of object orientation. At the same time, it makes things more difficult for programmers by lacking a simple printf/sprintf function. Of languages with a C-like syntax, I guess Java is the best option in most cases, but it's lack of true OOness, and its static typing really annoy me. Misinformed people who think that there is something inherently superior about languages which you have to compile to use just make it worse.
Re:Gtk#? Conservative GC? Hack? (Score:3, Informative)
Bullshit. Mono supports Windows.Forms via Wine. There is no way this can be "*the* standard". Windows.Forms is tied to the Win32 API, which even MS considers outdated. That is why they are replacing it in Longhorn. From this already discussed article [joelonsoftware.com]:
What a retarded website (Score:3, Informative)
The phrase we've got other stuff lined up inside would imply the link goes to the other stuff. The url for it seems like it'd show an index of all their linux content. But the word 'inside' actually shows the article.
Re:Why should "cross platform" always mean Java/.N (Score:1, Informative)
As for IDEs, eric3 is good. Very good. You talk about time savers - eric3 will kick your ass!! It is written using PyQt though so not sure whether it runs on Windows. Personally I still use a text editor tho.
Re:I may sound like a noob so I post anonymously (Score:1, Informative)
Debian does modify the bin_fmt configuration so you can execute it directly, but I'm not sure about other distros.
Re:Java (Score:3, Informative)
It did actually, despite what Microsoft, the Slashbots and the Linux (and Windows) press would have you believe. There are millions of Java developers across the world, there are billions of devices from phones to high-end servers running Java. The number is growing despite what the Redmond Marketting Machine tells you. Even IBM likes Java.
Re:Putting Mono, .Net and all that into perspectiv (Score:3, Informative)
You don't know the first thing about it, do you? Go read [everything2.com].
NET langages compile to plaform-independant bytecode. Shure it's ripping off Java, but it shows good taste in plagarism.
Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong (Score:2, Informative)
What's the relevance of data hiding in OOP?
There's some inconsistencies that look bad (why str(foo) and not foo.str()?)
Well, there is __str__ which is "magic", and every objects implements one.
Not to even mention that deep down many types aren't really objects at all, even though they may be used as though they were.
Of course they are objects, they just weren't subclassable in older Pythons. They were still normal referenceable objects.
and one of Python's strengths is that you don't need to use OO in your own design, but you can if your design needs it.
Even if you don't use it, it's still there (and that's the way it must be). Everything you see are objects and names bound to objects. That's what I consider pure OO, not the B&D imposed by Java that enforces the use of *classes* for everything.