Re: Languages, .NET, and shareware

rufwork wrote:
I have been programming professionally on Windows for more than 10
years. Widespread use of the Win32 API, or any other proprietary API
is generally not required. They can be abstracted away. The
exception has been GUI systems, but now we have portable, rich
alternatives like Qt or wxWidgets.

Dan Appleman (and his readers) might beg to differ. ;^)

I had to look up that guy. He and his readers are obviously entitled to
their views, but I would not expect them to be providing anything but
pro-windows arguments. Nothing wrong with that, but such opinions should be
balanced with other opinions to make an objective assessment.

I base my views on my own experiences. Generally, people must make up their
own minds, and not just trust others.

That sounds like it's selling Mono a bit short, and is in one case
inaccurate. Mono emulates nothing. It's an implementation of the C#
standard [sic].

As you are indicating, there is no such thing as a C# standard. There was a
standardisation process, but C# has been explicitely withdrawn from ISO
standardisation efforts. I.e. C# is a Microsoft proprietary language.

Though projects like Mono -- Kaffe comes to mind --

http://www.kaffe.org/ appears to be an implementation of the Java virtual
machine, unrelated to C# and Mono?

that try to
implement a standard separate from the group that created it often
don't do as well as the "official" version, Mono is doing right well.
Check out this list of companies that are using it.

http://www.mono-project.com/Companies_Using_Mono

It's a long list, and Includes Novell and MindTouch, which I
recognize.

Nov. 07, 2006, Novell gets $348 million from Microsoft
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7235986827.html

No surprise Novell is on the top of that list...... they are paid to do it.
Notice who you are supposed to email if you find a "cool Mono solution".

#develop, a pretty good .NET IDE, runs in Mono as well,
iirc. (Quick plug: #develop [on .NET, at least] is a neat way to
start playing with .NET if you don't feel like shelling out cash to MS
[or anyone else, for all that matters[.)

I was not aware of that, it is kind of interesting. But again, if you want
to make portable solutions .NET seems an odd route to take.

Code::Blocks http://www.codeblocks.org/ is an excellent C++ IDE that I have
used for some time and which enables making native GUI applications for
Windows, Linux and Mac without any need for any proprietary library or
language.

Would I suggest Mono as a target platform for what I consider
"stereotypical" [1] shareware? Probably not. As another poster
remarked, selling to businesses/corps makes the installation issue
(.NET, Mono, or Java runtimes, eg) much less of an issue, making
Novell's use of Mono make more sense than, say, mine.

If you are selling to the Windows market, I you can assume .NET will be
supported. But if the market shifts somewhat in the direction of Linux, it
will be because the market prefers an alternative to the current monopoly.
The fact that there are attempts by MS and their subsidiaries to support MS
proprietary technology on linux is no guarantee that those new Linux users
will want to have such technologies on their systems. In fact I think it is
a pretty safe bet they will not want that.

If you really
want to go xplat, Java still seems the winner to me, all other things
equal.

Java is fine, but not for everything. For applications requiring high
performance you cannot afford using a virtual machine like Java does. Most
applications on Windows and Linux use C++ generating native code.

What I am saying is that the days of the MS monopoly are largely
numbered. We can choose to face it now or face it when it is too
late to get ahead of the competition.

I'd tend to agree the hold is lessening; you're quite on the money
there. Still, what's the clear alternative? VB.NET is still a very
nice route for VB6 folk, eg, and when Vista finally does get even 50%
of the market, I'm switching. C# is a very natural ecosystem for Java
programmers who want to know the "runtime" is on their
customers' [Vista] machines, and it's easy to wear both of those hats
as needed. etc etc

Your alternatives mention exclusively MS proprietary languages and
technologies. If we agree that the MS hold is lessening, then it makes sense
to also look in other crystal balls than those provided by Microsoft.

--
Carsten A. Arnholm
http://arnholm.org/
N59.776 E10.457

.

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