[Mono-list] Mono / C# on PDAs

[Miguel de Icaza]

Hello,

> So I thought that C# (Mono plus qt#) might be a good alternative, 
> especially if it would support jitted code.  Is there any chance to use 
> Mono?  Does the jitter already support ARM instructions?  Would it be 
> too large and/or too slow for programs?  I think, Microsoft has a 
> special mobile .NET version (stripped down runtime libraries, don't 
> know?).  Will mono support this, too?

The current JIT could support it, but we are not putting a lot of
development on it anymore, as we are producing a new JIT engine which is
easier to port.

Once we release the new JIT (sometime early next year), we will be
interested in doing a StrongARM port.

For small machines, there are different criteria that apply to the JIT
engine.  For example, the JITed code will most certainly include some
profiling data, and generate PIC code, to allow the JITEr to discard
unused pieces of code, and compact code to reuse more efficiently
memory. 

There is plenty of research on the area that will apply to this.  

For desktop applications, I am wondering if someone has made a tiny Gtk2
version.  Two years ago we did a proof of concept port of Gtk to
minimize memory usage, and I would be interested in repeating that
experiment with Gtk2 to make it as small as possible. 

Miguel.