Mono Progress In the Past Year 441
Eugenia writes "OSNews posted an article accounting the applications created in GTK# the past 8 months, since the release of Mono 1.0. While many of them are still in their infancy, it's clear that the platform had a healthy progress, with 'super-hits' like Tomboy, F-spot, MonoDevelop, Muine & Blam! and other, less known gems, like SportsTracker, PolarViewer, MooTag, GFax, GIB, Sonance and Bluefunk. The 2.0 version of Mono is expected around May, but the developers advised distros and users to upgrade to Mono 1.1.4 despite being a beta."
huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF? Who comes up with names like these? I would blame the MBA's, but this is open source stuff, right?
Re:Beagle (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mono is Wonderful (Score:4, Insightful)
Impressive (Score:4, Insightful)
Great works, mono devs.
And to all those trolls that will come out of the woodwork with every mono story, telling us that mono is the end of open source:
Please, for once in your miserable lifes try to provide arguments for your point that go beyond MS is evil (though I would readily agree with that) and therefor mono is the suX0r.
good (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
At least give the program a somewhat descriptive name, ie Office, Internet Explorer, TurboTax, NotePad, Photoshop, etc...
If I were looking for a music player on Google, I wouldn't even give search results about programs named Muine, MooTag or Bluefunk a second glance, simply because they don't sound like music players.
Open Source programmers are good at a lot of things, but naming their programs isn't one of them. Just look at the whole Phoenix/Firebird/FireFox fiasco.
Re:Mono is Wonderful (Score:5, Insightful)
it's not reverse engineering (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no "reverse engineering" involved. These applications are written in C#, an open ECMA standard, and the open source Gtk+ toolkit.
I fear the day when Microsoft will come and snatch this out from under the Mono team,
There is nothing to "snatch": these are applications implemented in a non-Microsoft toolkit using an open language standard.
I really think this benifits Microsoft
I don't see how writing Gnome applications in C# benefits Microsoft any more than writing Gnome applications in C++ or Python.
Re:Hmm, does realy Mono work.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but let's be honest here: if you're writing a GTK/GNOME application you're writing a reasonably high level application and pretty much anything (Java, Python, hell even C++, bindings) would be "much more usable" than "old-fashioned C".
Please note that I am not dissing Mono. Variety is nice, and C# does provide a relatively nice language to be able to code GUI applications in. My issue is with the common implication that C# is unique in this - it isn't. Try out PyGTK [pygtk.org] for instance (particularly with libGlade).
Jedidiah.
Stop being a crusty slashbot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ford Explorer -- does that also access the internet?
Hyundai Accent -- is it about the korean language?
Honda Accord -- music perhaps?
People make names which they feel are the best for something. They rely on something's ability to be good at it to spread the love, so to speak. If it's good, people will remember it. If it's not good, it goes away and it's no issue. Do you really like how people went to ultrageneric names and domain speculation on the Internet? Pets.com? Mail.com? News.com?
Take a look at things which people remember. What about Napster implies filesharing? What about Suprnova? What about Google implies searching?
Naming is a magic game. Just because you don't like how others play it, does not mean they are playing it wrong. This whole "incorrect naming" meme is stupid and pointless. Start thinking critically about what you're saying before you repeat it everywhere.
Re:huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean like Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visio, Access, Oracle, or Winamp?
As we all know a product can only become successful if it has a clearly descriptive name like those above. I know whenever I want password and authentication software I think of access, when I want a scientific data visualization library I think of Visio, and it is clear that Winamp is software to provide fine tuning for your desktop volume controls.
Oddly however; stupidly named programs like Firefox (what on earth does that do?) seem to be doing okay.
Have you ever taken part in a GIMP renaming brainstorm session?
Paint (taken)
Photoshop (taken)
Photopaint (taken)
Paintshop (taken)
ImagePaint (taken)
Imageshop (taken)
Photostudio (taken)
PaintStudio (taken)
Studiopaint (taken)
Imagestudio (taken)
PhotoImage (taken)
ImagePhoto (taken)
.
.
.
I'm not saying GIMP is the best name, but when you demand an obvious name that associates with the field you suddenly find lots of other people who were thinking the same thing.
Jedidiah.
Re:Mono is Wonderful (Score:3, Insightful)
Java isnt closed in the sense that no one can get the code. Im not sure of the money you need (if any), but every JVM is well tested to make sure it does things in the way that Sun intended them to. That's what MAKES it a usable platform... and Im sure Sun really wouldnt like to support there multitudes of customers who are trying to run a java applications that seems to only work on the L33t-h4x0r-optimized JVM.
Mono has a long way to go, even in OSS (Score:3, Insightful)
Java (14080 projects)
C# (2206 projects)
Also, don't forget there is a very interesting ahead-of-time Java compiler as part of the gcc toolchain, gcj [gnu.org]. It isn't complete, but it is constantly improving and can now be used to write SWT and Gnome applications. Good stuff!
I hate to see C# getting any uptake when all it is intended to do is allow Microsoft to co-opt all of Java's good ideas while stifling portability as much as possible. It is a transparent Java ripoff.
Driving developers to windows (Score:3, Insightful)
Its great to have a language that can come installed with linux (java cough* cough*). However mono ultimately will work OK, but will drive developers to windows in droves because of the better deveopment environment that Visual Studio.net offers.
I fear that ultimately there will be mono apps that can run sometimes on windows (if you install gtk# etc...etc.) and
Mono has its place, but I don't think cross platform apps is going to happen.
Re:it's not reverse engineering (Score:5, Insightful)
The catch is that C# and CLR are not open standards - they are just ECMA standards. Apparently it was a brilliant move by MSFT because now people will automatically believe CLR is somehow "open". In fact, a while ago Novell was asking MSFT for a clear declaration that Mono does not infringe MSFT IP. Guess what, we never heard what happened with that.
I don't see how writing Gnome applications in C# benefits Microsoft any more than writing Gnome applications in C++ or Python.
It provides a hose that MSFT can step on to end the distribution of the appications. The more critical the app is for Desktop Linux, the better for MSFT. Hopefully the apps that are written in C# will stay small and architecturally open enough to be easily rewritten in another language should that happen. We should never become too dependent on Mono, or Java, or any other proprietary technology.
Almost 100% Agreed. (Score:3, Insightful)
By extension, you could just as easily say that the implementation language never matters, it's all just a Turing Machine(*) anyway. Except it does matter. Support for cleaner syntax, extra type checking, virtual/non-virtual method dispatch, etc. all matter when implementing an OO design. You can avoid whole classes of bugs by having proper language support, and programmer time can be reduced considerably.
(*) We'll conveniently ignore the fact that computers aren't really TMs here. The point is still valid.
Re:Mono is Wonderful (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:good (Score:3, Insightful)
uses polymorphism, then it's OO, otherwise it's just a modular design. Assuming
you buy into the distinction I just made, it's unusual, but not difficult or impossible,
to do OO in C since the language doesn't explicitly support polymorphism.
In contrast, python makes polymorphism so simple that you often don't even
realize you're doing it. With Java and C#, you either have to share a common
ancester or implement the same interface.
Re:Story time (Score:5, Insightful)
secondly, mono is more about enabling developers to use C# and CLR, rather than allowing people to run windows software on *nix, so there isn't the same necessity for bug-for-bug compatibility as there is in samba (where you want to look exactly like a Windows box from the outside).
Re:huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know why, but just about every OSS project title is some tongue-in-cheek in-joke amongst the developers who are the only ones who think it's funny. Like KDE programs all being titled with puns starting with "K."
Besides, Powerpoint, Access, and Visio have reasonable similarity with what they actually do. As for your completely random and pointless reference to Bob, I'm still amazed Slashdotters obsess over this small desktop shell released for a short time way back in 1994.
What are the good bits of which you speak? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Story time (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, reading that statistic I was impressed by how well C# is doing -- 1/7th as many projects as Java, and really all in about 2 years, and in the OSS community which isn't exactly MS's core area.
I think MS have recaptured a bit of their old magic here, in lowering the 'energy threshold' required to get a project going. That's what made VB and Excel so ubiquitous -- I'm not saying that that was a good thing, but it sure worked. The work you have to do to create, package and distribute a
Of course, I'm far from declaring victory for
Re:I think it is a mistake (Score:1, Insightful)
Now I would readily agree that there are probably parts of the mono project that could turn out to be problematic, like implementing winforms, which is afaik not part of the standard. But, and that's really the important point here, mono itself and all the programs mentioned here written with mono and gtk# wouldn't be affected by any MS legal assault on mono's winforms implementation.
So what exactly makes you think that mono is such a huge risk?
Re:From a mono developer.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:C# Rocks - go mono go. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've had a .NET app handle 100,000+ active TCP connections on a Win2k3 box without blinking an eye.
Just watch out for heap fragmentation caused by pinning your input buffers. It's best to preallocate them in blocks and reuse them when you can.
Re:From a mono developer.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Either Novell has an ace up their sleeve they are willing to take a risk with or they are setting themselves up for failure. Either way; it's going to be costly.
If history is any marker. Microsoft will be attacking Novell within the next 2-3 yrs. Well, unless Microsoft has changed. Well wishing, speculation and positive good seeking doesn't exist when it comes to the letter of the law. If Microsoft hasn't stated in writing in a public forum or fashion that "It's ok for Novell to implement non published ECMA standard stuff into Mono". It doesn't matter how friendly they seem now or how much "interest" they see in it.
Either it's illegal or it's not. If you aren't sure you better find out, or find a firm that will tell you one way or the other. If Novell is going to operate in the speculation waters, they better make the retainer for legal a bit bigger.
Re:Did you forget about wxNET? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mono is Wonderful (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if Sun doesn't open their implementation, people will still create Java compilers. Take a look at the Kaffe and GCJ project. Why don't you complain about them "fragmentating" the Java community? If Sun open sources their JVM implementation, how will it suddenly generate more fragmentation than GCJ/Kaffe already do?
Which bit of Java isn't open ? (Score:3, Insightful)
C# is an ECMA standard (which of course with generics et al Microsoft is breaking). This is NOT open, and certainly not in comparison to Java.
The Java Community Process [jcp.org] go to the site and have a look at the "closed" and unchangable monstor that Sun has created. I mean its just scary to think that Java 6.0 [jcp.org] is ASKING FOR JOINERS, to input into the next standard.
How would you become an ECMA member and propose changes to C# ?
Re:Take the Mono Challenge !!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Contrary to both the JVM and MS
And we're rapidly improving to support better server workloads.
Re:Mono is Wonderful (Score:3, Insightful)
Without that freedom, you and all that code you & your team spent 18 months coding are sitting under the thumb of Sun. Sun can tell you which platforms you can migrate to in the future (unless of course you want to rewrite everything in something non-java). If it is against Sun's business interest to port / allow a port of java to architecture/os xyz, you're not going to be using it.
It may not even be the fault of Sun being aggressive. What if Sun drops java? What if Sun goes bust? What if Sun has a hostile takeover by a company who wants to sweep java under the rug? One way or another there could be no more java releases.
So in 5 - 10 years time when the industry makes another architecture/os leap, you're stuck running on platforms which were around in 2005, no matter how much cheaper & faster the more common new systems are. Time to rewrite plenty of code.
It's not hard to imagine - people are making the jump to amd64 now. A couple of years from now, amd64 will be the commodity hardware standard. Cheap and easily available. Imagine if Sun had for one reason or another dropped java in 2003 with no amd64 port.
No amd64 java. We'll have to stay running our systems in deprecated 32bit mode. Or rewrite everything. Or use one of the unofficial java replacements that's come up to fill the cracks. But oh no, those would be forks that comply to no standard!
And really, please drop the myth of open source incompatible fragmentation.
Python's been going for around 15 years. How many python standards are there to code to?
Perl's been going for longer. How many perl forks are there?
How may rubies?
How many phps are there?
Now let's look at some closed languages:
All I can think of is your beloved java. MS, IBM, Sun, Kaffe, GCJ... Your strategy of keeping it closed to prevent incompatible versions doesn't seem to have worked!
If you want all of your code to be under your own control, don't write it in java.
Re:it's not reverse engineering (Score:4, Insightful)
Your point would be well made if all Mono wanted to do was implement C# but obviously Mono looks do to much more than that. I never meant to imply that these early adopter apps use ASP/ADO.NET as they clearly do not. I was merely commenting on the the larger issue touched on by the great grandparent which is the possibility of MS trying to damage Mono somehow (by using an IP / patent club in my example).
Who is to say that MS won't at some later date apply for a patent to some core part of
Depending on the good graces of someone who will go to great lengths to stop Linux is something we ought to consider *very carefully* before embracing Mono with both arms.
Note that Mono very openly encourages and advertises Mono's support [mono-project.com] for these questionable portions of
Saying that the patent issue is a "red herring" is an enormous stretch. Mono's web site acknowledges that is an issue and even tries to come up with mitigating factors. Heck, Miguel even acknowledges that this is an issue which deserves debate, discussion and may result in the FOSS community having to route around patent damage. I'm not sure why you're trying to paint this as a non-issue when all sides have agreed that it is an issue worthy of discussion.
Re:huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Visio, as in vision, as in visualizing schematics.
This isn't difficult.
Re:Stop being a crusty slashbot. (Score:1, Insightful)
No, names have a real impact. I know a lot of geeks don't care about this (Who cares if this library is called huc2r15xy.lib? It works great!), but normal people do.
To make an extreme example, if Burger King called their burgers Shitters instead of Whoppers, they wouldn't have sold very well. I know a lot of slashdotties would have gone to buy "Shitters" because of the name, but normal people will avoid your product if they have to ask for a "Shitter" for lunch.
Do you really like how people went to ultrageneric names and domain speculation on the Internet? Pets.com? Mail.com? News.com?
No, those are bad names, too. There *are* good names on the internet, like Google, Napster, Monster.com, or even Slashdot. The idea is *not* "generic = good".
The difference is that: (a) Websites are *all about* branding. People don't bookmark much, so using a name with "career" in the URL for a job webpage is doomed to failure. "Monster.com" is easy to remember, so people keep going back there. Programs are different: it's on my computer, it's right there. I don't really need branding for a music player (I can pick it out of the list). And: (b) I don't even know how to pronounce some of this crap. "Muine"? Moo-ine? Mweene? Muh-wine? Mweeney? If nobody can figure out how to pronounce your name, it sucks, full stop.
Naming is a magic game. Just because you don't like how others play it, does not mean they are playing it wrong. This whole "incorrect naming" meme is stupid and pointless.
I've heard exactly the same thing about user interfaces and design from geeks for years. Geeks like to put everything in terms of equations and big-O and C code, and anything that doesn't fit falls into the "magic" category, where "you like what you like and nothing is better than anything else". But that's simply not true [paulgraham.com].
Re:Did you forget about wxNET? (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as people keep downloading Mozilla, Firefox, and Thunderbird.