[Mono-devel-list] Sitting on the fence

[Jonathan Pryor]

On Sat, 2004-10-23 at 13:00, Eron Lloyd wrote:
<snip/>
> 1. I need a Swing replacement. Is the new managed SWF exactly what I'm looking 
> for?

Not now, but maybe eventually.  The Managed SWF is incomplete, but
should be complete by Mono 1.2 (whenever that is).

However, many people find SWF to be very limiting -- explicit positional
layout, not i18n aware, etc.  It works with .NET, but that's the only
benefit to SWF.

Gtk# is the currently preferred solution, and should be usable across
all platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, with the caveat that Mac OS X
currently requires an X11 installation).

> 2. I need a JSP-type solution (I know nothing comes close to Zope). What is 
> mono's Web application strategy? As far as I know, ASP.NET isn't protected by 
> the ECMA, is it? Also, ASP.NET is SO Win-centric, whereas JSP is much more 
> open.

ASP.NET is Mono's web application strategy.  It isn't protected by ECMA,
but Microsoft hasn't gone gunning after us yet.  Microsoft also hasn't
gone after ChiliSoft for their ASP implementation (apparently now owned
by Sun).

I'm not sure why you think ASP.NET is Windows-centric.  We've had lots
of success in porting ASP.NET applications to Mono.

> 3. Java WebStart/embedding applets is VERY appealing. Is there a way to do 
> this just as easily (in a cross-platform way) in Mono?

Not yet.  I'm not sure when this would be supported, either.  Code
Access Security is a pre-requisite, which is being worked on but is
incomplete (and will likely require a code audit before it is complete).

 - Jon