[Gtk-sharp-list] How the developments of gtksharp and gtk+ interact?

[Jonathan Morgan]

On 3/21/07, Rafael Teixeira <monoman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that new managed widgets, can be reused, using Stetic's
> export/import mechanism, but that only works for managed programs,
> what itself foments Mono/GTK# usage. As more languages are coming to
> the pool of managed ones (including python/ruby) this is less of a
> restriction on current devs, they just adjust a bit to conform to the
> GTK# API.

Having the language move to being managed isn't necessarily
everything.  A lot of standard libraries for these languages are
implemented for the original, but are unimplemented for the Managed
version (or the Java version, for that matter).  This means that they
cannot generally be used to port existing code without a (potentially)
considerable amount of work, though they may be useful in writing new
code.

In addition, the managed versions of these languages seem to be at the
tail end of the language development.  If new features are added to
the original implementation of the language, it may take months or
years for these features to reach the managed implementation, while
the dependence on managed libraries may make it unable to be ported
back to the original language.  Why would developers choose to use the
managed version of the language when the unmanaged version is more
widely used, has more features, and has more extensions specifically
designed for it?

Jon