[Mono-devel-list] The road to Mono

[Rafael Ferreira]

I think this same discussion happened a few months ago when the first
roadmap came out... and the consensus was: SWF will not be in mono 1.0...
But hey discuss away.

- Rafael 

-----Original Message-----
From: mono-devel-list-admin at lists.ximian.com
[mailto:mono-devel-list-admin at lists.ximian.com] On Behalf Of
Wayne.Arenz at gd-ais.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 3:05 PM
To: mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com
Subject: [Mono-devel-list] The road to Mono

Ok, I just to waste electrons to state what is probably the patently obvious
re: Mono 1.0 and SWF; this as I insert myself, uninvited, into the
conversation between Andreas Nahr and Ben Maurer.

The truly exciting thing about Mono for some of us (all of us?) is not only
that one can write in "any" language and compile to common CIL; it is also
(primarily) that one can then run that CIL on any platform supporting an
ECMA CLR.  After all, that is the raison d'etre for Mono, isn't it?  Not
just some exercise of self-gratification for a bunch of Linux/ Unix hackers,
right?

It truly IS great what Mono can do already.  Truly, truly, truly.  However,
as Ben has said, not having that graphical-SWF-thing that Microsoft had to
go create and propagate frustrates the "truly exciting thing", i.e. of being
able to take some dotNet app written and compiled in Windows and have it run
without further fuss upon Linux or Mac or even upon a Solaris Sparc.

It will just be a temporary disappointment, that's all.  In the meantime,
unfortunately, it appears the world has gone graphic crazy.  The average
"customer" probably just won't be much interested in console.  Therefore, it
will be a temporary tougher sell to get some of them to go "dotNet" until
they can see their Windows investments running on Linux or Solaris.

***** What we really need now is a "dotNet" for graphics! ***** Another ECMA
standard I suppose.  This is coming from the standpoint of a guy who has had
to (slightly painfully) deal with GTK/Gnome, SWF, IBM SWT, and Sun AWT/Swing
over the course of these past two months -- I only knew about one of the
four when I started my recent journeys.

Unfortunately, I can't help with developing that graphics interface
standard, nor can I help with the SWF implementation in Mono.  Too many
issues, too many fun projects, too little time ... and I doubt my wife or
employer would appreciate it. :)

Therefore, I heartily commend all the efforts of the Mono crew and thank
each of you!


R. Wayne Arenz 
E-mail: wayne.arenz at gd-ais.com
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