GNOME One Step Closer To Using .NET

fader writes: "On gnome.org is an article indicating that there are now GTK bindings for C#. Basically, when combined with MONO, this means that you should be able to write at least some rudimentary .NET applications for GNOME." Update: 04/12 00:30 GMT by T : Hetz points out that Qt already has this capability (also in Alpha): here's a link to the Qt-CSharp project, and a proof-of-concept screenshot as well.

buttonhook release of gtk-sharp still needs Win32

[ubiquitin]

The gtk-sharp [sourceforge.net] project only runs on Win32:
To hack on Gtk#, you still need a Win32 machine with the .Net Framework installed, as the binding cannot be compiled on linux yet.

Personally, I'd rather see Ximian assist and support Tor Lillquist's efforts to port GTK to Win32. The port of GIMP to Windows took painfully long, in part because the team working on it is so small.

a good thing...

[metacosm]

I personally believe anything ".net" related is a good thing. ".net" is a tidal-wave, it will gain developers and mindshare, C# is a fairly good language, not perfect, but good. I think that _anything_ that opens up doors and options that were not previously available is a positive step. No one is forcing development or usage of these tools, it is simply an option.

Options are _good_.

Feel free to rip apart this post on the basis it is not anti-M$, my apologies!

Re:a good thing...

[StealthAXE]

(metacosm: I just printed it out and tore it to pieces.) But seriously, now that Sun is bringing their weight to the GNOME consortium, a gnome friendly implementation of things .net could spell some real trouble for Bill. Now THAT'S a good thing.

Re:a good thing...

[metacosm]

*Laugh* -- but honestly, I don't care if it does help sun. I personally enjoy coding both C# and java. J2EE has a much stronger backbone and better documentation. C# has better web services access via .net and a better IDE. But, I always support more options and competition.

Re:a good thing...

[RevAaron]

Amen. Frankly, I don't like C#. I don't generally like to put up with lame-ass ALGOL-derived languages like C, C++, Java or C#. The beauty of .NET is that I don't have to. I can code apps in Smalltalk, Lisp or Perl, and they'll all be as 'first-class' as an app written in C#.

Re:a good thing...

[morbid]

There are loads of languages that compile to the Java Virtual Machine as well. Google is your friend. Nice troll though.

Re:a good thing...

[metacosm]

Jython is very cool...
http://www.jython.org/

Re:a good thing...

[RevAaron]

The guy who said:
"He said "they'll all be as 'first-class' as an app written in C#". You're the troll, dumbass. If you knew anything about the JVM you'd know the other languages are a hack compared to Java."

Was right.

Compiling to the JVM isn't special. I cannot subclass a Python class from within Java, but more importantly, from yet another language on the JVM, Silk for example. Other languages running on the JVM isn't "transparent language interop" it's retargeting for a different instruction set. Nice troll though.

Re:.suck

[RevAaron]

hehehehe ur kool asl?

Re:.suck

[mobydobius]

Gosh, I care, and the people working on the project care.

Keep in mind that this is a specialty article, not a mainstream article. You are free to ignore it. If you don't care, there are plenty of other places on slashdot for you to waste your time.

Re:.suck

[mkmiller]

I feel so special. I am FINALLY a troll. Makes me feel all warm and .net inside.

before everyone freaks out...

[Panix]

The selection of the title of this article is very disappointing and misleading. I wish that slashdot would have done a bit more research before posting this article.

To clarify - noone has stated in any way that GNOME will *ever* use .NET. It just happens that Ximian is implementing the ECMA Standard for .NET and a few other pieces to offer compatibility with some .NET applications, and to provide a better platform for them to write their own applications with.

What was released yesterday is called GTK-Sharp, which is simply a set of language bindings for GTK to enable people to use C# to write GTK programs. Now, when the python bindings to GTK were released, it would be equally foolish to state that "The GIMP is one step closer to being written in Python." Think before you post articles, please.

As far as the announcement itself is concerned, I am very pleased. I am intrigued by the possibility of a sanely designed cross-platform language independent solution for developing applications and web services. I really like the idea of a common class library and the common intermediate language. The guys at Ximian are doing some great work. Keep it up!

Re:before everyone freaks out...

[mobydobius]

I agree completely. C# is a language. At the minimum, .NET is the C# language with a set of standard libraries that do useful things (If only Bjarne had thought of that when he introduced C++). Mono is just an implementation of the language and those minimal libraries, and AFAIK GTK# is just a way of binding the GUI portions of those libraries to native GTK calls, and can be used independently of the .NET portions of Mono, for those who just like writing in C#.

GTK/Gnome has bindings for just about any useful language, and a few not so useful ones. This is possible in part because GTK/Gnome is C based. I don't see that changing. The only thing that may change is that more people may use higher level languages to write their GTK/Gnome applications, especially if the bindings support a large subset of GTK/Gnome features, as it appears GTk#/Mono will (and GTKmm/Gnomemm currently does). How is this a bad thing?

Say What?

[4of12]

Having used Bourne shell for so long I figure everything past the # is meant to be comment, not really meant to be executed.

Re:Say What?

[mobydobius]

Unless you are root. Then you should just think carefully before executing :-)

Cool. Qt supports it too.

[JabberWokky]

KDE might not plan on basing anything on .NET, but there have been C# Qt bindings [kde.org] since March 17th. They were released the same day as the KDE 3 Python bindings. There's also info for the KDE 3 Ruby bindings on that page and upcoming KDE 3 Perl bindings. Plus of course there's the standard C++, Java, Objective C and plain old C bindings for KDE and Qt.

--
Evan

Re:Playing into the hands of M$ ?

[dthable]

And that is the Microsoft plan. They have always focused on building troops of developers for their platform. In the early 90s, MS was selling their development tools to Universities and students are rates much lower that the professional developer. Thus, the students left school with an understanding of the Microsoft way of development and pushed the companies to adopt this way of development.

Now the story is the same, but MS is targeting the open source icons. If they can get these people to join in the .Net craze, then more people will learn .Net and start pushing that idea at work. Once again, MS wins because then they change the platform all they want.

This is becomming the key difference between developers. There is this group that understands C, assembly and the architecture of the hardware. They can move between all of these different SDKs and still grasp the concepts. It's the MIS professional who are going to get screwed. When your education depeneds on the current SDK for developing applications, what happens when no one uses the SDK? Look at where everyone who just learend Java is worried about going. I'd rather take the CS degree path and learn about all the theory. I can always learn new languages that MS is pushing later on.

Re:Playing into the hands of M$ ?

[dthable]

I'll actually take your comments with more than a gain of salt when you:

Actually show who you are by logging in.

Provde more than a personal attack. Got any facts or lines of logic?