[Mono-dev] Mono-devel-list Digest, Vol 96, Issue 26

[James Bellinger]

On 4/26/2013 10:50 AM, Jonathan Pryor wrote:
> So on the one platform for which it doesn't use it's own theming and instead uses the platform theming (it uses WinAPI ~directly), it looks good.
>
> Great.
>
> That also happens to be the platform which has it's own native System.Windows.Forms implementation, so I'm not entirely sure what Mono is buying you there, except possibly a zero-install app environment (no need to install .NET).
Yes, a 5 MB-compressed portable installation with no possibility of odd 
installation issues is a definite plus. :)
> EVERYWHERE ELSE (Linux, OS X), it looks like ass.
>
> (Please, for the love of $DEITY, do not use WinForms for new projects with any notions of being cross-platform, unless WinForms is a "pluggable" front-end with other front-ends available. The fact that such a "pluggable front end" architecture also makes the app amenable to Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS is a happy coincidence. ;-)
>
>   - Jon
>
This really suggests "WinForms ought to be made to look better on other 
platforms" instead of diffusing
the needed effort to end users and forcing them to maintain more code.

I see this attitude all the time in open source projects but I must 
confess I've always been puzzled by it.
Suppose Microsoft has a bug in their code. They can take a few man hours 
to fix it, or cause 10,000
people to spend half an hour each on workarounds. They often *do* the 
former, but it's wrong and
wastes finite human lifetime. Some platforms having unique controls here 
and there, sure, but that's an
argument for a custom control here and there, not entirely rewritten GUI 
code.

James