Mono 2.10, Moonlight 4 Preview 1 Released

[ciplogic]

Why I do want Mono!

Why I do want Mono on Linux:
- it is another option, for desktop development is better than Java. Why people don't bash Java as Oracle sued eventually. They don't offer a Community Promise that Microsoft did
- Mono offers a decent runtime by default to develop in Ubuntu. Compare with Gtk+/C and you will understand why. If you use paired with LLVM JIT it gets impresive performance, tested by miself
- It does not break at least no public patent. Why people complaining don't say: we don't want WebM, Apple will attack Google eventually for patents? Or we don't want OpenOffice, let's use KOffice every time
- How can you start using Linux if you are locked in with .Net if you develop on Windows? You may start by migrating your server from Windows to XSP/Mono with Linux. This is the reason why some people did not migrate to Linux till Wine was capable to run their beloved game
At the end I just want to congratulate them to their achievement, SGen bug fixing makes it really juicy and I really hope them the best!

[kraftman]

Why I don't want mono on Linux:
it's slow, it's crap from ms, it uses patented tech, Icaza is a lier and he's not fair with us, there are far better options - Qt, vala.

[crazycheese]

Why I do want Mono on Linux:

Because you want a house built on top of vulcano?

[BlackStar]

Because you want a house built on top of vulcano?

Free geothermal energy! Besides, millions live on top of volcanoes without issue. We can detect potential explosions long before they happen, so we can evacuate our houses safely.

[crazycheese]

Free geothermal energy! Besides, millions live on top of volcanoes without issue. We can detect potential explosions long before they happen, so we can evacuate our houses safely.

Microsoft is not kind of vulcano you will be allowed to leave without leaving all your work in volcano as well. Speaking of free geothermal energy from msvolcano, do you mean piracy?

[crazycheese]

Besides, millions live on top of volcanoes without issue.

If you do not include
- monstrous land rent agreement(no buy)
- absence of anything, but high cost instead
- the living space size, planned to be build, becomes lot smaller in reality, because msvolcano occupies so much land-space for unknown purpose. You can almost say it is japanese city apartment size initially built on american ranch size land.
- monthly to yearly rebuilding the house from ground up
- absolute requirement for high cost security measures to even somehow secure that house, only to find out it needs to be rebuilt
- requirement to repurchase the house every few years or be forgotten
- requirement to manually update almost everything by hand
- house behaving on its own....
- owner visiting your house any time he wants
... wait there is more
- owner of mcvolcano sabotaging hawaii to build another msvolcano there....

[ciplogic]

Why I don't want mono on Linux:
it's slow, it's crap from ms, it uses patented tech, Icaza is a lier and he's not fair with us, there are far better options - Qt, vala.

I do remember you trolling about this. But as any "religious" talker, you don't give arguments.
For your honesty, I will recommend you to track Icaza's messages and prove if possible where and when was a lier.
As you know that Qt and Vala are better options, probably you will want to say how will you make a web server with them, if possible with as little as to no setup (no linker errors and so). Also, you are probably the guy that will never contribute to an opensource project, but simply criticize it for technologies.
Let's disseminate Moonlinght technology wise:
- uses Cairo (similar with PostScript language, may be attacked for patents by Adobe)
- OpenGl (can be attacked by Microsoft as it have DirectX, NVidia/AMD/Intel as it have implementations patents, Apple as it has its own extensions)
- C core, can be attacked by an obscure company that have a compiler patented technique
- FreeType for fonts, was attacked in past about hinting (by Apple)
- a JIT (named Mini), can be attacked by Oracle, Microsoft, any other VM vendor that uses a technique about how GC works, Just In Time works, SSA reprezentation
- codecs: they cover any FFMPEG codec, so can be attacked by MPEG-LA (Apple, MS based)
- plugin interoperation: a company may have a patented implementation how plugins in Firefox work
- a bytecode and a compiler that converts C# (both free specs with Community Promise) that are free of charge/ free of use

Which part do you think that is the most dangerous area? Can you find using Google Patent one problematic patent? May at least look in Microsoft Rotor sources and investigate compared with Mono and see where Mono did copy MS implementation. In this way you can spot to the line where problems can occur. Anyway, after this you can be sane saying that Mono copy from Microsoft.

If you will compare for example Vala, Qt with Mono/C# stack, the difference will stand mostly in JIT and bytecode. GLib can have patented algorithms, what if a GLib patent is found by Oracle and will force to remove DBus fully from Linux distros? If this will happen, it will be still a solution using Mono's remoting and Java remoting, so more options may be the better in context of a patent war.

Even your argument as: it is slow... when you did your benchmark last time? Did you tried with --llvm and with SGen? If is all about start time, when you tried (you just have to enable MONO_AOT_CACHE environment variable) to use Ahead of time compilation to see that applications may start even faster. Which application do start that slow? Or is Mono command line tool? Did you put a bug report with your machine specs and your expected startup time? To not ask you to just run that application adding profile flags to Mono command line to identify the slow spot.

[RealNC]

As you know that Qt and Vala are better options, probably you will want to say how will you make a web server with them, if possible with as little as to no setup (no linker errors and so).

No idea about Vala, but with Qt you can write an example server in a few lines of code, using Qt's network API.

[ciplogic]

No idea about Vala, but with Qt you can write an example server in a few lines of code, using Qt's network API.

Yes and no. Did you tried it? It is possible to host some web services in almost any languages, even FreePascal. But you know real web pages/portals/etc. written in Qt? Or just for exposing some server side component for a database? I don't know any. There are real life cases that use Mono as a server for their services (PlasticSCM). Also a full web page with backed C++ code is possible just client side (which in part what ASP.Net is all about), when likely in Qt you will "just" expose web services.
Mono is a direct migration path to real life applications: XSP said previously, MoonLight at one level, WinForm that looks a bit crappy, but for small applications can be migrated to Linux. Without that option, you will be without Linux at all.
I also hoped that someone will say about Python (that can make a full web server and Django framework prove it). Python if will come with a tracing JIT in my view will be a similar (to not say a replacement) to a lot of use-cases that Mono brings to Gnome. JavaScript may come first, as it may use GObjectIntrospection and I will not be against to be written in this language too.
So I do think that more choice (even the option to pick between Python and C++ for desktop - as I love Mercurial and TortoiseHG) for developer is much better than one guy/user that he likes C++ applications to say to developer to contribute in this or that language. At the end users will pick the best application, even is written in Mono or not. I do pick Banshee as for me seems better than other default distro one, but I do know people liking more AmaroK (even on Gnome) or BMP.
Who cares at the end in which language is written?

[RealNC]

Yes and no. Did you tried it?

I did. It was a university assignment. I wrote a small server that supported SSL in pure Qt.

It is possible to host some web services in almost any languages, even FreePascal. But you know real web pages/portals/etc. written in Qt?

You don't write web pages and portals in Qt. You write servers and clients that support HTTP, TCP/IP, SSL, etc. Qt isn't for web page development. It's a thin wrapper around the operating system's network stack, making it possible to write native network code that runs on all platforms supported by Qt.

One example of servers written with Qt is Murmur, the VoIP server part of Mumble. And the client part is Mumble itself, also in Qt.