[Mono-dev] VS build requires cygwin build first?

[Edward Ned Harvey (mono)]

> From: mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com [mailto:mono-devel-list-
> bounces at lists.ximian.com] On Behalf Of Aaron Shumaker
> 
> I am trying to follow the build instructions for Windows/Visual Studio.
> 
> http://www.mono-project.com/Compiling_Mono_on_Windows

A lot of the documentation and stuff on mono-project.com may be out of date.  People make some efforts to maintain it, but since spinning off and rebranding, it's often not as current as you would hope.  Those people with access to the github project find it much easier to just maintain the git sources (including documentation files, which render into webpages automatically on GH.)

Whenever possible, start with the github project, to see if you can find what you're looking for there.
https://github.com/mono
Although - in this case - I'm not sure this would have done you any good.  As I *thought* I saw windows/cygwin build instructions there, but now I don't see it.

Without having the experience of actually completing it, my personal expectation is that I wouldn't expect VS to build mono.  Even in unix-y systems, Xamarin Studio doesn't build it; it builds via make.  I saw some checkboxes inside of Xamarin Studio for some kind of make integration, but I've never tried it, don't know how well it works, and I would be shocked if VS has anything analogous and actually functional.  (But I could be wrong entirely.)

Fortunately, on non-windows systems, it's completely unnecessary to build inside the IDE.  See the recent thread
http://mono.1490590.n4.nabble.com/Getting-started-on-mono-sources-td4661906.html#a4661947

In this way, I'm able to *build* on the command line with make, but *edit* and *debug* inside the IDE.  I lose the convenience of a click-button for build, which is fine as far as I'm concerned.

I'm pretty sure with cygwin and xamarin studio (monodevelop) you'll be able to do the same on windows.  Or, it's also entirely likely, that you can find checkboxes inside VS that will allow you to link against the make-compiled runtime, just as we do in Xamarin Studio.