[Mono-dev] Technical details of Mono...

[Paolo Molaro]

On 03/02/06 Redefined Horizons wrote:
> Where can I learn about the technical details of Mono's virtual
> machine? Things like the language it is implemented in and details
> about the inner workings. I'd like to become familiar with these
> topics so that I might eventually be able to assist with Mono
> development. I'm sure this understanding will also help me write
> better software for Mono!

Part of the Mono VM is written in C: you can find the sources in the
mono svn module or a mono released source tarball.
Part is written in C# (this is mscorlib, basically: the sources are in
mcs/class/corlib).
There are some docs on the internals in mono/docs.
Reading the ecma spec for the CLI is also basically a requisite if
you're really into the VM stuff (download it from
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-335.htm).

> Are there any published books that explain these type of technical details?

See the above spec. Also any book on compilers is good for understanding
how the jit compiler works.

> Can I find the same type of information for Mono's different language compilers?

There is a book on the IL language by S. Lidin (ilasm compiler).
The ecma 334 spec is also a good reading to understand the C# ciompiler.
Apart from that the source is readily available and readable.

> How might I get in touch with the GTK# development team? Are they on
> this list, or is there a separate development list that part of Mono?

We have the gtk-sharp list for that, see:
http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/gtk-sharp-list

lupus

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