Microsoft Announces An LLVM-Based Compiler For .NET

[cyrix]

Seems this will make MONO obsolete soon? When Ubuntu ships MS C# I might use it.

mono is already obsolete since the moment of its inception. It has always been behind the official .net implementation, which renders it completely useless, unless you plan to rewrite your shell scripts in c#

By the way, all this open sourcing from microsoft isn't really going to change anything here. Most .net APIs apart from the server side ones are deeply tied to the windows api. This means no way you can run .net applications/games on linux.

So everybody relax. MS isn't doing this for you... they just want asp.net to be cross-plaftorm. You know, not all sysadmins are ok with this windows frankenstein os on a server

[uid313]

Sounds good. One day we might finally get an open-source C++/clr compiler though. C# can piss off but .NET is pretty cool for tedious GUI tasks.

No, C# is pretty damn sweet.
I think it is the best language right now.

[Luke_Wolf]

mono is already obsolete since the moment of its inception. It has always been behind the official .net implementation, which renders it completely useless, unless you plan to rewrite your shell scripts in c#

I actually agree that mono is obsolete, or rather it will be over the next year as .NET Core solidifies it's cross-platform story.

By the way, all this open sourcing from microsoft isn't really going to change anything here. Most .net APIs apart from the server side ones are deeply tied to the windows api. This means no way you can run .net applications/games on linux.

Wrong. The BCL is in no way tied down to the Windows API, What is tied down to the Windows API are extension libraries such as WPF or WinForms none of which are required to create .NET applications. As far as games go that's objectively wrong as shown by the existence of OpenRA and Atom Zombie Smasher, also the Unity Engine, and things like SecondLife. This is possible through things like monogame and OpenTK (Which wraps SDL and a few other things).

So everybody relax. MS isn't doing this for you... they just want asp.net to be cross-plaftorm. You know, not all sysadmins are ok with this windows frankenstein os on a server

you should read through this

http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-open-sourcing-of-net-the-back-story/

[magika]

No, C# is pretty damn sweet.
I think it is the best language right now.

Best for what?

[cyrix]

Wrong. The BCL is in no way tied down to the Windows API, What is tied down to the Windows API are extension libraries such as WPF or WinForms none of which are required to create .NET applications. As far as games go that's objectively wrong as shown by the existence of OpenRA and Atom Zombie Smasher, also the Unity Engine, and things like SecondLife. This is possible through things like monogame and OpenTK (Which wraps SDL and a few other things).

Yes, I know WPF or DirectX are not required when developing applications or games in .net. But people uses them in lots of projects, and this open source release isn't going to make any change here, as those parts will remain closed. Applications like paint.net, flashdevelop... are windows only and will still be after this.

[nanonyme]

Why is MS doing all this?

LLVM is under a permissive license so MS can write proprietary plugins while reaping all the goodies LLVM has to offer. It's actually a pretty good deal for them

[mether]

I actually agree that mono is obsolete, or rather it will be over the next year as .NET Core solidifies it's cross-platform story.

I don't know about that. The primary products of Xamarin built on Mono enable C# developers to build apps for Android and iOS. Open source .net doesn't solve the problem for that audience yet.

[sarmad]

I don't understand exactly the role of LLVM here. Is it that MS will let any LLVM-based language to be executed in the .NET runtime, or is it that the C# compiler will emit LLVM IR code and get executed by LLVM?

[goTouch]

Sounds good. One day we might finally get an open-source C++/clr compiler though. C# can piss off but .NET is pretty cool for tedious GUI tasks.

... only if the entire GUI platform API/libs are made available...

[Luke_Wolf]

I don't know about that. The primary products of Xamarin built on Mono enable C# developers to build apps for Android and iOS. Open source .net doesn't solve the problem for that audience yet.

The Mono runtime is only really relevant for iOS and only until .NET Native is implemented in an OSS cross platform way in .NET Core. Xamarin's real product is their bindings and tooling for Android and iOS, which aren't dependent on any particular runtime (other than that iOS needs AoT Compiled C#). Generally speaking though, once .NET Core's cross platform support solidifies I don't really see a reason to not use it instead of mono.