New Mono 1.2 Now Supports WinForms

smbarbour writes "The Mono project (the open-source .NET compatibility library acquired by Novell when Ximian was purchased) has released version 1.2. They are now including support for WinForms. Ars Technica has a detailed rundown on the new release. The Mono project supports Visual Basic.NET as well, so developers that use VB.NET now have the possibility of directly porting applications to Linux." From the article: "Relatively high memory consumption and performance bottlenecks are commonly perceived as being amongst Mono's most significant weaknesses. Some critics frequently refer to various performance issues to support arguments against broader adoption of Mono technology in open source projects, most notably within the GNOME community. The performance improvements in Mono 1.2 could potentially address such criticisms, but it is likely that a lot more work will be required before the problems are completely resolved."

Very good!

[Orion Blastar]

I want to be able to develop applications in both Windows and Linux. VS.Net and Mono allow me to use the same code with very little tweaking between platforms and keep using my Visual BASIC skills I learned over a decade ago.

Windows Forums means I don't have to rewrite part of the program that uses forms for Linux.

I hope this gets more VS.Net developers porting over to Linux using Mono. Linux can really use more easy to use and easy to develop applications without having to learn kernel hacking and methods that exist only for Linux. This is a good thing and maybe the corporations will decide to have some Linux workstations if they can develop VB.Net applications for them the same way they develop them for Windows.

Indeed.

[Shados]

This is a pretty cool project, and its coming along nicely. I really want to see it succeed, because that would allow me to spread my skills to a wider array of customers. Unfortunately, in its current state, MONO is only a partial implementation of .NET 1. And honestly: .NET 1 was garbage, and the vast majority of software that had the unfortunate badluck of being developped under it have been upgraded to the excellent .NET 2 by now (it is rare that apps get updated that quickly, for example between different java version.).

And now with .NET 3 out (which is only an extension of .NET 2, not an actual new version of the framework...dumbass marketing idiots at microsoft), .NET 2 is even more important.

Re:So what?

[LWATCDR]

If you use Beagle for searching you do.
There are some cool mono projects out there. Now if they would just create a native compiler for mono programs so I don't have to have the entire run-time installed that would be great.

Good for development purposes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone have success using Linux/mono to develop ASP web apps that will be deployed to MS servers? I may need to work on a legacy ASP app and was hoping to be able to do it on my Linux pc.

What about shady Novell-Microsoft dealing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Until we know all the details of that shady Novell-Microsoft deal [groklaw.net] we are planning to avoid anything that relies on Novell, as much as possible.

Personally, I'd go further and say this is Microsoft language designed to kill the GPL and the FOSS development method, whether consciously or unconsciously. Why? Because if you can't share your software with anyone for fear of a patent infringement lawsuit, in what sense is it GPL? How are you part of a community, all building a common pool of code anyone can freely use? That is one of the main purposes of putting software under the GPL in the first place. It's also why Linux development was so much faster than proprietary software development ever can be. So who is going to stay within the lines of this so-called safety from being sued by Microsoft? Obviously nobody in the FOSS community. Microsoft gets to claim it has offered something wonderful, but in reality no one can actually benefit from its pledge without ceasing to be a member of the FOSS community.

On the other hand, I do hope Sun will release Java under GPL soon.

Re:Great, even more ways for MS to kill it

[RealSurreal]

A week ago I would have said you were a paranoid, FUD-spreading nutjob but now I have to agree with you. Novell have sold themselves out and I'm going to be deeply suspicious of anything they do from now on.

Sharp Develop

[dedalus2000]

so does this mean sharp develop will now run on mono?

Re:Great, even more ways for MS to kill it

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent troll. MS has released all patents relating to the .NET framework for public use. The Mono website itself even mentions that specifically.

Stop the FUD.

Re:Great, even more ways for MS to kill it

[segedunum]

The .NET Framework is divided in two parts: the ECMA/ISO covered technologies and the other technologies developed on top of it like ADO.NET, ASP.NET and Windows.Forms.

NO. Microsoft has made it abundantly clear that when you implement the the ECMA stuff, and your own CLR, you are entering into a RAND agreement with Microsoft, and they have patents essential to the running of it:

http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/mai n/0,14179,2887217,00.html [zdnet.com]

This was pointed out years ago. No, how long does this agreement last? The answer is, as long as Microsoft wants it to. Should Microsoft revoke this agreement, or initiate a revocation, then the worst that will happen is that the ECMA standards will be revoked. The ECMA wording on this is pathetically weak and under no circumstances gives a legally binding long-term guarantee. This is why we had all that rubbish about a 'letter from Microsoft' that didn't materialise some time back:

http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/codeofco nduct.htm [ecma-international.org]

The whole 'ECMA is safe' thing is what the Mono people would have you believe. It isn't. The RAND stuff is double speak, because Microsoft do have patents that are specific to implementing .Net, CLR, the ECMA stuff etc. Not Java or anything else - just .Net. The e-mail quoted above basically means nothing.

It's actually more likely that the Microsoft specific stuff like ADO.Net, ASP.Net and Windows.Forms are safer since these are only namespaces in an API, although their patents basically say that if you're implementing .Net stuff and running it in a CLR then it applies. Fairly clever actually. They're saying that if you want to implement some of the stuff in a JVM or something, then that's OK, but if you're cloning a Microsoft compatible .Net then it applies to you.

Re:Whats wrong with Java?

[SnprBoB86]

FUD.

My anicdotal evidence suggests that .net's memory consumption is very reasonable and we all have anicdotal evidence that Java is a memory hog.

Let's see some benchmarks to support your claims.

A framework of our own?

[caudron]

I'm a developer. I've made considerable money as a .NET developer, specifically, and while I am fully entrenched in the Free Software camp, I admit that I like the.NET framework overall. That said ... ...The open source community has some of the best and brightest minds in the software world involved in its improvement. So the question that naturally follows is, "Why haven't we designed and implemented our own framework?"

Seriously, we spend endless hours debating which is less evil---java or mono---and we complain that both don't offer us the flexibility we have grown accustomed to in the F/OSS world, so why haven't we just started from scratch and done our own linux-centric framework to ease RAD work and simplify the task of getting started in Linux development.

I'm not suggesting it has a place everywhere. Certainly most kernel work and most driver work would need to stay C-based, but if we had a framework designed from the ground up to open Gnome and KDE devlopment (well, userspace development in general, really) it would get used. There's obviously a market for it. Developers argue over Java and .NET/Mono endlessly as to which is best for Linux development, which is faster, which is easier, which is just plain better. Write in whatever language you want, but write to the framework that best opens Linux up the developer. Without question, that would be the framework that was written specifically for it.

I dunno. There may be good reasons, but I don't see them from my vantage point.

Til I see a solid and Free alternative, I'm gonna stick with Mono (which I'm impressed with so far), but I'll keep my eye out.

Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ [digitalelite.com]

be specific

[idlake]

People like you produce a lot of hot air, but please be specific for once:

* Which patents is Mono suppose to be violating?

* What reasons does anybody have to believe that those patents actually are worth the paper they're written on?

* Given Microsoft's royalty-free licensing terms, what argument could they possibly make to a judge about damages?

* Why do you believe that those patents are hard to work around should Microsoft be insane enough to assert them?

* Which modern platform is guaranteed to be free from potential patent claims (from Microsoft or anybody else), and where is the evidence?

If people like you can't provide clear, convincing answers to these questions, then we might as well stick with Mono for the time being.

Re:Indeed.

[Shados]

Well, the ADO.NET model was fairly bad, asynchroneous execution support was poor, no generic, no nullable types, VB.NET didn't support automatic documentation. The framework's architecture assumed a lot of generated code, but without a good way to deal with it (partial classes). Lack of 2 way databinding, making all the RAD-like features 95% useless in corporate environments. And so on and so on. A lot of the architecture of the API was also remenecent (spelling?) of the old Microsoft-style MFC/VB6, keeping the same weaknesses. A lot of them have been fixed in .NET 2, but still there's a bunch left (Like how the System.Drawing namespace relies a lot on GDI, and uses Enumerations for configurations, instead of the Strategy pattern to allow us to extend it).

Thats for the language. ASP.NET 1 is really where the garbage was (the above was mostly that the languages weren't mature enough). The page model was horrible in every ways, shape, or forms.

Visual Studio 2002/2003 was a fairly poor and feature-lacking IDE, too (and lets face it: in the microsoft world, the IDE is part of the environment).

I guess the reason I felt that way, was that Java 1.5 came out not that long after .NET 1, and had most of the features above, so when came time to pick a framework, you had on one side a free (not "Free") framework that can run on most relevent platforms, and has all the features you'll want, and on the other side, you have an obviously feature-lacking framework that is -bound- to get a major overhaul, thus crippling your investments, and it only runs on one platform to boot.

If you did .NET 1 in Windows Form or services, its not so bad. It wasn't adequate, but it was to be expected from a version 1. If a company did ASP.NET (not counting web services), I really feel like they wasted a lot of money. Yes, you can upgrade it relatively easily: however, ASP.NET 2 allows for much better and cleaner software architectures, the like that were not possible in 1.1. Adding new components to a large scale apps using 2.0 architecture when the app was started under 1.0/1.1 means that your architecture will be fairly consistant. AKA: You're screwed.

Don't get me wrong, if you look at my posting history, I'm starting to have a reputation to being a Microsoft butt kisser, so I'm definately not biaised against them. I just feel .NET 2.0 should have been the first version, as it is truly a good product (which is why 3.0 is just an extension of 2.0, as it should be), while 1.1 had to go through several major architectural changes.

The more the merrier

[Brandybuck]

As a professional Qt developer, I have a great number of clients who come to me to get out of the .NET trap. They were promised by Bill Gates and Miguel Icaza that .NET was transparently crossplatform. That it was a fully open standard. That there were not any performance or memory problems. Companies too cheap to upgrade from freebiee VS Express are forking over the cash for single-platform Qt licenses. Why? Because Qt is turning out to be THE native C++ API for Windows, Mac and Unix.

Re:So what?

[filesiteguy]

Valid comment. (I cannot believe they marked you as flame bait for this.)

There aren't that many Mono users out there yet because of a few reasons. First off, the GIMP toolkit looks like crap. (That's a fact, not an opinion.) The only Mono GUI app I've seen is F-Spot, which I won't use due to its poor UI.

Now that Winforms are supported, maybe peeps on the Wintendo side of things can get a decent looking GUI app built in Mono. I suppose we *nix folks would be stuck with GTK+ apps, but then at least some people would get looks.

I would love to get myself off of the wierdo-language constructs of Java and into C#/Mono, but couldn't until now, without relinquishing some serious L&F qualities.

Re:So what?

[Nataku564]

At the cost of (arguably) reduced readability in many cases.

So, let me see if I got this straight...

obj.setProperty(sampleValue);

is harder to read than

obj.Property = sampleValue;

Yeah ... I am afraid we don't quite see eye to eye on this one. The issue of delegates I agree with to some degree, as it is nice syntactic sugar, but one that is, again, easily done equivalently well through the use of listener interfaces. Admittedly, it uses more lines of code, but it also guarantees that people actually impliment the interface, as opposed to simply subscribing to events haphazardly and hoping they got the right ones.

And, while I am at it - C#'s lack of a "throws" clause on functions is just as annoying. In Java, I have a programmatic way of knowing what exceptions to expect from a function (other than runtime ones, of course). In C#, I have to guess ... or just catch Exception and hope it isn't a nasty one that I am keeping from rightfully propogating up the stack. Now, if you are purely in your own code this isn't absolutely terrible, as you can just start digging and figure it out. However, if you are using any microsoft stuff, or any third party dlls, you are pretty much screwed.

Re:Very good!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Then learn some standard languages (Perl, Python, C++, Java...) and portable toolkits (Qt, Wx, etc), not Microsoft's proprietary stuff."

Name 3 popular Windows apps that use one of those portable toolkits... I thought so.

Re:A framework of our own?

[caudron]

I don't disagree that Python is a good language, that makes development easy, but I'm not talking about languages. I'm talking frameworks---one totally divorced from the languages used to code against it. Python is great, but it's not even in the ballpark of .NET's scope, power and flexibility (Oh man, I am SO gonna get a /. beatdown over that comment ).

Python is to Linux as VB is to Windows. That has its place, and I'm glad it's there, but I mean a framework that would have compile to a VM that sits above the OS (perhaps even in userspace!) and that has bindings for c#, python, ruby, smalltalk, etc...).

I haven't thought through the details fully, and I could be totally wrong (wouldn't be the first time) but I don't know of anything that makes coding on Linux as easy as coding against .NET (except mono and java, which being /potentially/ non-free causes us some problems).

Consider this the feedback of a Windows developer by trade who uses Linux exclusively at home. Anecdotal, but it's the opinion of many/most Windows developers. And they often won't go with mono becuase mono is consistently about 15 months behind MS in its API.

Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ [digitalelite.com]