.Net's Crossplatform Nature and XAML

[Jeff Johnson]

In the early days of .Net... those first books that came out would often have
comments about how you shouldn't do 'X' because it would compromise the benefits
of being cross platform. Now the books are silent on the matter... and the
Mono workshop got cancelled at the PDC... and I'm anticipating some Event
which forever marries dot Net to Windows.

My question after viewing the Don Box/Chris Anderson video is regarding XAML.
Does this tight integration of XAML with Avalon represent a break with .Net's
cross platform nature, or is it just a relatively straight forward generalization
of what we've already got in the dot net framework? (Will it be difficult
for Mono to replicate these features?)

[Tom Shelton]

In article <3fa6b429$1@devx7.web.devx.com>, Jeff Johnson wrote:
>
> In the early days of .Net... those first books that came out would often have
> comments about how you shouldn't do 'X' because it would compromise the benefits
> of being cross platform. Now the books are silent on the matter... and the
> Mono workshop got cancelled at the PDC... and I'm anticipating some Event
> which forever marries dot Net to Windows.
>
> My question after viewing the Don Box/Chris Anderson video is regarding XAML.
> Does this tight integration of XAML with Avalon represent a break with .Net's
> cross platform nature, or is it just a relatively straight forward generalization
> of what we've already got in the dot net framework? (Will it be difficult
> for Mono to replicate these features?)

I think your confusing .NET with the CLR. The CLR is a cross platform
standard. .NET is MS's implementation with a bunch of stuff added on.
I personally have never considered .NET cross platform - but I have
thought it was possible to write cross platfrom code. To me, it is a
lot like C++. C++ is cross platform, but not all programs written in
C++ are.

As for Mono - I'm not sure how hard it will be for them to replicate
this functionality. But, I imagine it wouldn't be that difficult - they
would probably just map it to the GTK# implementation.

If cross platform is an important feature for you - then I would focus
on Java, not .NET.

Tom Shelton

[Kent]

Mono gimme a break! No one ever promised you cross platform with .Net, they
may have teased you but no promises were made and none will ever be made.

Stop dreaming!

"Jeff Johnson" <jeff@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>In the early days of .Net... those first books that came out would often
have
>comments about how you shouldn't do 'X' because it would compromise the
benefits
>of being cross platform. Now the books are silent on the matter... and
the
>Mono workshop got cancelled at the PDC... and I'm anticipating some Event
>which forever marries dot Net to Windows.
>
>My question after viewing the Don Box/Chris Anderson video is regarding
XAML.
> Does this tight integration of XAML with Avalon represent a break with
.Net's
>cross platform nature, or is it just a relatively straight forward generalization
>of what we've already got in the dot net framework? (Will it be difficult
>for Mono to replicate these features?)

[Michael Gautier]

Cross platform is not optimal without multi vendor buy-in. For example, the
best way to get the .Net runtime to execute well on a Mac is for Apple to be
significantly involved in the development.

In order for that to happen, Microsoft would have to be willing to work with
multiple vendors to this end. Microsoft cares about interoporability to the
extent Windows can be sold as a Web Services platform. They have no interest
in selling Linux, Mac or anything other than Windows. Just today the VP of
SQL Server said it is never going cross platform.

Mono looked like a good idea, but the truth is that APIs they are modeling
change too frequently to be relevant long-term. It is disappointing, but it
may be the price you pay for progressive excellence with Microsoft's
Platform. If this is unacceptable, the Java world is just as good. Version
1.5 of the JDK is looking good.




"Jeff Johnson" <jeff@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:3fa6b429$1@devx7.web.devx.com...
>
> In the early days of .Net... those first books that came out would often
have
> comments about how you shouldn't do 'X' because it would compromise the
benefits
> of being cross platform. Now the books are silent on the matter... and
the
> Mono workshop got cancelled at the PDC... and I'm anticipating some Event
> which forever marries dot Net to Windows.
>
> My question after viewing the Don Box/Chris Anderson video is regarding
XAML.
> Does this tight integration of XAML with Avalon represent a break with
..Net's
> cross platform nature, or is it just a relatively straight forward
generalization
> of what we've already got in the dot net framework? (Will it be difficult
> for Mono to replicate these features?)

[Jeff Johnson]

If cross platform is an important feature for you - then I would focus
on Java, not .NET.

-- Tom

Stop dreaming!

-- Kent

Mono looked like a good idea, but the truth is that APIs they are modeling
change too frequently to be relevant long-term.

-- Michael


Thanks for the response, guys....

.Net does what I need it to... and Java's not my cup of tea. I don't believe
the 'dream', but still... watching that door close is not something I relish.

As a VB-guy-who-got-screwed, the ability to take my code base to a Linux
box if MS does something overly obnoxious is something I'd like to preserve
if it's at all possible.

[Kent]

Jeff,

We all got screwed! Some of us are just more bitter than others! To me
at least it looked as though cross platform was a design goal of the framework
that was quickly forgotten about.

I used to hate Java, now I'm wondering why. It's really slick and the dev
tools have become first class. Give up the VB ghost and move on.

Kent

"Jeff Johnson" <jeff@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>If cross platform is an important feature for you - then I would focus
>on Java, not .NET.
>
>-- Tom
>
>Stop dreaming!
>
>-- Kent
>
>Mono looked like a good idea, but the truth is that APIs they are modeling
>change too frequently to be relevant long-term.
>
>-- Michael
>
>
>Thanks for the response, guys....
>
>.Net does what I need it to... and Java's not my cup of tea. I don't believe
>the 'dream', but still... watching that door close is not something I relish.
>
>As a VB-guy-who-got-screwed, the ability to take my code base to a Linux
>box if MS does something overly obnoxious is something I'd like to preserve
>if it's at all possible.

[Joe \Nuke Me Xemu\ Foster]

"Kent" <kp@kp.org> wrote in message <news:3fa81f4c$1@devx7.web.devx.com>...

> We all got screwed! Some of us are just more bitter than others! To me
> at least it looked as though cross platform was a design goal of the framework
> that was quickly forgotten about.

It was a textbook bait-and-switch, wasn't it.

> I used to hate Java, now I'm wondering why. It's really slick and the dev
> tools have become first class. Give up the VB ghost and move on.

Welcome to JVM ****!

--
Joe Foster <mailto:jlfoster%40znet.com> Got Thetans? <http://www.xenu.net/>
WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above They're coming to
because my cats have apparently learned to type. take me away, ha ha!

[Frank Rizzo]

Joe "Nuke Me Xemu" Foster wrote:

> "Kent" <kp@kp.org> wrote in message <news:3fa81f4c$1@devx7.web.devx.com>...
>
>
>>We all got screwed! Some of us are just more bitter than others! To me
>>at least it looked as though cross platform was a design goal of the framework
>>that was quickly forgotten about.
>
>
> It was a textbook bait-and-switch, wasn't it.

Joe, at what point did microsoft say that it was embarking on a
cross-platform jihad?

And what exactly is preventing Mono from building XAML into their framework?

Besides most of .NET and Mono work in the future is likely to be web
apps, web services, web etc..., so the UI makes no diff.

[Tom Shelton]

In article <3fa827c0@devx7.web.devx.com>, Frank Rizzo wrote:
> Joe "Nuke Me Xemu" Foster wrote:
>
>> "Kent" <kp@kp.org> wrote in message <news:3fa81f4c$1@devx7.web.devx.com>...
>>
>>
>>>We all got screwed! Some of us are just more bitter than others! To me
>>>at least it looked as though cross platform was a design goal of the framework
>>>that was quickly forgotten about.
>>
>>
>> It was a textbook bait-and-switch, wasn't it.
>
> Joe, at what point did microsoft say that it was embarking on a
> cross-platform jihad?
>
> And what exactly is preventing Mono from building XAML into their framework?
>
> Besides most of .NET and Mono work in the future is likely to be web
> apps, web services, web etc..., so the UI makes no diff.
>

Mono is getting to be a pretty nice system - as long as you avoid
system.windows.forms :) I like it a lot, and it does provide a nice
familiar developement experience on Linux. If they never "keep" up with
MS, is not the point to me really. The point is that I can take my
experience as a .NET developer and easily shift platforms if the need
arises. My only real concerns with Mono are the legal ramifications of
the MS patents. What are MS's intentions towards Mono? Especially,
with the amount of competition (yeah!), that Linux is starting to
produce? My personal fear is that MS is going to bring the patent
hammer to bare on Ximian and Mono... I wish they would clarify a little
more what their position is. Given it's history, I find it hard to
believe that this will be the case - but what if? It's one of those
niggling little doubts I have about the future of Mono (and that applies
to dotGNU as well).

Tom Shelton

[Michael Gautier]

I cannot see Microsoft pulling the patent card unless Longhorn fails and
Linux rises higher. If Longhorn succeeds meaning the definition of success
is strong consumer and corporate desktop adoption upon release, then they
won't care. They won't care because they may honestly think that the "User
Experience" and "Convenience" aspects of Longhorn will matter so much more
than the technology that the users will be hooked. If people care more about
how pretty something is, shiny and ultra cool in the area of interactions,
then they may win in that area.

The other thing is, that .NET is so vast that others have considered it not
a Framework. If this bears out to be true long-term, then I may be possible
that .Net was really a foundation and that WinFx is the true framework
product being sold. If this is true, then you end up with three classes of
managed applications:

Cross Platform (Java/C++)
Cross Platform Possible (Low-level .Net)
Windows (WinFx)

If .Net grows to be considered lower level managed programming, then it is
likely not to be taken up by companies, individuals and organizations that
tend to deal with the latest and greatest thing marketed by Microsoft. The
process by some people to do Mono on Linux may diminish (only a little)
since the desirability of any crafted business solution may be less than
that which could be performed through WinFx.

In short I think WinFx which was mentioned by Jim Allchin in a Forbes
article several years ago as a next generation technology post 2010 is a
clever rebranding of .Net as Microsoft views it that is value added and
proprietary to Windows.

I am not so much against it as I am cautious of the market perceptions where
early adoption of .Net may not translate to experience considered for WinFx.





"Tom Shelton" <tom@mtogden.com> wrote in message
news:3fa83fe8$1@devx7.web.devx.com...
> In article <3fa827c0@devx7.web.devx.com>, Frank Rizzo wrote:
> > Joe "Nuke Me Xemu" Foster wrote:
> >
> >> "Kent" <kp@kp.org> wrote in message
<news:3fa81f4c$1@devx7.web.devx.com>...
> >>
> >>
> >>>We all got screwed! Some of us are just more bitter than others! To
me
> >>>at least it looked as though cross platform was a design goal of the
framework
> >>>that was quickly forgotten about.
> >>
> >>
> >> It was a textbook bait-and-switch, wasn't it.
> >
> > Joe, at what point did microsoft say that it was embarking on a
> > cross-platform jihad?
> >
> > And what exactly is preventing Mono from building XAML into their
framework?
> >
> > Besides most of .NET and Mono work in the future is likely to be web
> > apps, web services, web etc..., so the UI makes no diff.
> >
>
> Mono is getting to be a pretty nice system - as long as you avoid
> system.windows.forms :) I like it a lot, and it does provide a nice
> familiar developement experience on Linux. If they never "keep" up with
> MS, is not the point to me really. The point is that I can take my
> experience as a .NET developer and easily shift platforms if the need
> arises. My only real concerns with Mono are the legal ramifications of
> the MS patents. What are MS's intentions towards Mono? Especially,
> with the amount of competition (yeah!), that Linux is starting to
> produce? My personal fear is that MS is going to bring the patent
> hammer to bare on Ximian and Mono... I wish they would clarify a little
> more what their position is. Given it's history, I find it hard to
> believe that this will be the case - but what if? It's one of those
> niggling little doubts I have about the future of Mono (and that applies
> to dotGNU as well).
>
> Tom Shelton

[Kent]

"Joe \"Nuke Me Xemu\" Foster" <joe@bftsi0.UUCP> wrote:
>Welcome to JVM ****!

JVM **** has yet to rear it's ugly head. We only support Sun's VM on the
client side. No real problems thus far on the serverside.

[Kent]

Frank Rizzo <none@none.com> wrote:
>Joe, at what point did microsoft say that it was embarking on a
>cross-platform jihad?

No promises were made, but their were plenty of teases. The compilers for
example produce MISL instead of machine code. That at least infers cross
platform support does it not?

>And what exactly is preventing Mono from building XAML into their >framework?

As Tom has stated previously, it's a matter of resources. Unless a really
big company (Novell owns Ximian now so it could happen) decides to sink some
money into Mono, it won't amount to much and will constantly lag behind .Net.
That brings up another good question, if someone does decide Mono is worth
sinking money into, should Mono be limited in scope to being a .Net clone?
I would think not! In which case MS would most likely exercise their patent
power.

>Besides most of .NET and Mono work in the future is likely to be web
>apps, web services, web etc..., so the UI makes no diff.

Really? Seems to me a lot more focus is being placed on the rich client
expierience these days. Everyone seems less focused on the browser.

[Tom Shelton]

In article <3fa90cc0$1@devx7.web.devx.com>, Kent wrote:
>
> Frank Rizzo <none@none.com> wrote:
>>Joe, at what point did microsoft say that it was embarking on a
>>cross-platform jihad?
>
> No promises were made, but their were plenty of teases. The compilers for
> example produce MISL instead of machine code. That at least infers cross
> platform support does it not?
>

But that does not necessarily mean accross OS's. Think about it. .NET
code can run on pocket pc's, win32, and soon win64. And all that with
out a recompile. In other words, it is cross architecture, just not
100% cross os :)

>>And what exactly is preventing Mono from building XAML into their >framework?
>
> As Tom has stated previously, it's a matter of resources. Unless a really
> big company (Novell owns Ximian now so it could happen) decides to sink some
> money into Mono, it won't amount to much and will constantly lag behind .Net.
> That brings up another good question, if someone does decide Mono is worth
> sinking money into, should Mono be limited in scope to being a .Net clone?
> I would think not! In which case MS would most likely exercise their patent
> power.
>

Yes, Mono will always lag somewhat behind .NET. But, that's ok. I see
mono really as a good thing for Linux in general. It is a way to
provide a consistant api across linux distributions. It also brings a
much easier and cost effective development cycle to the Linux platform.
..NET compatability is nice, but I don't really see it as essential. The
big question is if Linux developers will embrace mono... And to be
honest, I think that is going to be a major hurdle - simply because MS's
name is attached to it. Further, Java could very well have done the
same thing - but it has been slow to gain acceptance in the OSS
community. So, I have no reason to think that mono will succeed where
Java has failed.

Tom Shelton

[Kent]

Tom Shelton <tom@mtogden.com> wrote:
>In article <3fa90cc0$1@devx7.web.devx.com>, Kent wrote:
>
>But that does not necessarily mean accross OS's. Think about it. .NET
>code can run on pocket pc's, win32, and soon win64. And all that with
>out a recompile. In other words, it is cross architecture, just not
>100% cross os :)

Yes, that is very true and that is a good thing for Microsoft and the .Net
developer. However the tease of multi OS is still there. Microsoft fueled
some of it with Rotor.

Where is 64bit .Net anyway? Java's worked on 64bit processors for quite
some time.

>Yes, Mono will always lag somewhat behind .NET. But, that's ok. I see
>mono really as a good thing for Linux in general. It is a way to
>provide a consistant api across linux distributions. It also brings a
>much easier and cost effective development cycle to the Linux platform.
>..NET compatability is nice, but I don't really see it as essential. The
>big question is if Linux developers will embrace mono... And to be
>honest, I think that is going to be a major hurdle - simply because MS's
>name is attached to it. Further, Java could very well have done the
>same thing - but it has been slow to gain acceptance in the OSS
>community. So, I have no reason to think that mono will succeed where
>Java has failed.

I doubt many developers will be happy with lag time, but that of course would
depend on the feature they want to implement. I know I hate it when Sun
releases a new JDK and it takes Apple a year to cut a release at the same
version. It sucks!

I don't think anyone should expect Mono to remain merely a shadow of .Net.
You seem to be assuming that Linux shops will wait for Microsoft to set
the bar and not innovate in the meantime. At somepoint Mono needs to add
value above and beyond being a copy of the .Net runtime for linux.

Mono first and foremost will have to unseat Java and Perl/PHP on Linux and
I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

Contrary to what you may think, Java has a very large following in the OSS
community. Take a look at Sourceforge, Apache, Eclipse, Netbeans, JBOSS,
JXTA, etc.. (the list is really quite large). A lot of OSS heads don't like
Java because the runtime is not OSS, but often that doesn't stop Java from
being implemented, it's just merely kept Java from being part of the Linux
distribution (no big deal!). JBOSS on Linux is huge right now! The JCP
has also made some minor adjustments to make dealing with OSS a bit easier.

Kent

[Tom Shelton]

In article <3fa9539a$1@devx7.web.devx.com>, Kent wrote:
>
> Tom Shelton <tom@mtogden.com> wrote:
>>In article <3fa90cc0$1@devx7.web.devx.com>, Kent wrote:
>>
>>But that does not necessarily mean accross OS's. Think about it. .NET
>>code can run on pocket pc's, win32, and soon win64. And all that with
>>out a recompile. In other words, it is cross architecture, just not
>>100% cross os :)
>
> Yes, that is very true and that is a good thing for Microsoft and the .Net
> developer. However the tease of multi OS is still there. Microsoft fueled
> some of it with Rotor.
>

Rotor was part of the standardization process. It was made to prove
that the standards were indeed capable of beign cross platform. But,
..NET is not the ECMA/ISO C#, CLI. It is a supperset, and its the value
added stuff that is not necessarily cross OS.

> Where is 64bit .Net anyway? Java's worked on 64bit processors for quite
> some time.
>

Last I heared, it was in beta. I haven't really checked into it lately.

>>Yes, Mono will always lag somewhat behind .NET. But, that's ok. I see
>>mono really as a good thing for Linux in general. It is a way to
>>provide a consistant api across linux distributions. It also brings a
>>much easier and cost effective development cycle to the Linux platform.
>>..NET compatability is nice, but I don't really see it as essential. The
>>big question is if Linux developers will embrace mono... And to be
>>honest, I think that is going to be a major hurdle - simply because MS's
>>name is attached to it. Further, Java could very well have done the
>>same thing - but it has been slow to gain acceptance in the OSS
>>community. So, I have no reason to think that mono will succeed where
>>Java has failed.
>
> I doubt many developers will be happy with lag time, but that of course would
> depend on the feature they want to implement. I know I hate it when Sun
> releases a new JDK and it takes Apple a year to cut a release at the same
> version. It sucks!

Is that still an issue? I thought that with OS X that all changed...

> I don't think anyone should expect Mono to remain merely a shadow of .Net.
> You seem to be assuming that Linux shops will wait for Microsoft to set
> the bar and not innovate in the meantime. At somepoint Mono needs to add
> value above and beyond being a copy of the .Net runtime for linux.

Oh, I fully agree and they are already doing that. They have added
tons of value added data providers to their implementation, as well as
GTK# for cross platform GUI's. There are a lot of things in Mono that
are not in .NET. All I'm saying is that mono will always be behind MS
in implementation of the MS specific stuff.

> Mono first and foremost will have to unseat Java and Perl/PHP on Linux and
> I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

Well, with the backing of Novell - who knows. First Novell aquired Ximian,
and stated that it was totally backing Gnome and Mono. Novell now has
signed an agreement to purchase SuSE. Ximian is pushing for a unified
and compatible API accross distributions. In what they are describing,
there is only two current platforms that make that possible and that is
Java and .NET. Linux needs this to attract more ISV's. It is too
difficult to support all the various distros, and expect to make any
money. Given the parties involved interests, I think mono will be the
platform they will push.


> Contrary to what you may think, Java has a very large following in the OSS
> community. Take a look at Sourceforge, Apache, Eclipse, Netbeans, JBOSS,
> JXTA, etc.. (the list is really quite large). A lot of OSS heads don't like
> Java because the runtime is not OSS, but often that doesn't stop Java from
> being implemented, it's just merely kept Java from being part of the Linux
> distribution (no big deal!). JBOSS on Linux is huge right now! The JCP
> has also made some minor adjustments to make dealing with OSS a bit easier.

I shouldn't have said failed - Java hasn't failed in OSS, but it has
taken a lot of time to gain acceptance, and it seems pretty much limited
to the enterprise, rather then the desktop. It is really only in the last
two or three years that it has started to really gain momentum. And a
lot of that was Suns fault, the fact is that many OSS people do not
trust Sun at all. They have continually hinted that they would make
Java OSS, yet they have never come close to delivering. And look at
their behavior towards Linux... One day it's all praises, next it's
hatred and bile. They even bought one of those SCO "licenses". Sun has
been trying to play both sides of the fence and have fostered a lot of
distrust... At least with MS, people know where they stand on Linux :)

Tom Shelton