[Mono-list] Mono: Post 1.0 plans and development update.

[John Luke]

I don't know why I am asking about this, but wasn't there a plan for
smaller ECMA profiles for things like mobile devices?  When I attended
a .NET user group meeting a few months ago this seemed to be a major
point of interest among the existing .NET users there.  Forgive me if
I missed an obvious answer somewhere.

On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 18:41:11 -0400, Miguel de Icaza <miguel@novell.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
>     Well, this release was fairly intense, thanks to everyone that
> contributed, the time has come to plan for the new features in Mono.
> 
> * Releases
> 
>         Mono has been branched on the CVS repository and today we have
>         two development tracks: the mono-1-0 branches and the HEAD
>         branch.   The mono-1-0 is only getting bug fixes and no new
>         developments are happening there.   The HEAD branch is where all
>         the new features are being developed and where we are landing
>         many of the patches that we did not get into the 1.0 release for
>         various reasons.
> 
>         We will follow the Linux kernel model for release numbering,
>         which means that we will release bug fixes and updates to the
>         Mono 1.0 distribution, and those will be named 1.0.1, 1.0.2 and
>         so on.
> 
>         The development versions of Mono will be released as well and
>         will be named Mono 1.1.0, 1.1.1 and so on.
> 
> * Updated Mono Roadmap.
> 
>         I am working on an updated version of the Mono roadmap to plan
>         our upcoming releases, at this point we are completing the
>         feature list of the things that my team inside Novell will be
>         working on.
> 
>         Since Mono is developed by a large community outside of Novell
>         the release will likely contain more than what my team is
>         commited to do, purely based on external contributors, but the
>         roadmap will try to be as conservative as possible in our time
>         and feature estimates.
> 
>         I would like to make a release of Mono 1.2 (the next stable
>         release) by February of next year, which means that we have
>         roughly six months of development before we go into pure bug
>         fixing mode.
> 
> * Focus of the Novell team.
> 
>         There are a number of areas in which we are focusing for the
>         Mono 1.2 release:
> 
>                 * C# 2.1 implementation
> 
>                 * AMD64 JIT port.
> 
>                 * Visual Basic compiler.
> 
>                 * Improved IO-Layer and Internationalization framework.
> 
>                 * Gtk# improvement and GUI designer.
> 
>                 * Mono Debugger.
> 
>                 * Windows.Forms support.
> 
>                 * JIT performance work.
> 
>                 * Integration of patches that were too big to make
>                   it into the 1.0 release.
> 
>                 * Code Access Security Framework.
> 
>                 * Continued bug fixing of major and critical bugs.
> 
>         Those are the areas that people have expressed their most
>         interest.  Notice also that the above is still pretty much work
>         aimed at the .NET 1.1 framework.
> 
>         Only a couple of developers are working on new features from the
>         .NET 2.0 platform, but we do not believe that we can complete
>         the .NET 2.0 API in time for the 1.2 release, so it is best to
>         only deliver the bits listed above.
> 
>         As usual, a preview of the .NET 2.0 API will be available, but
>         wont be complete.
> 
> * .NET 2.0 work
> 
>         The Framework almost doubled in size in some parts of the
>         framework.  A handful of the Novell developers (Atsushi, Gonzalo
>         and Lluis) will be working on the .NET 2.0 APIs in parallel,
>         hopefully we can release some of the .NET 2.0 features a few
>         months after the 1.2 release comes out.
> 
>         If you want to help, this is an area where we could use your
>         contributions.  Details about the large areas that need work are
>         available on the CVS module called `release', look in the
>         directory called mono_2_0.
> 
>         If enough people want, we can transform that list into something
>         Web-browsable.
> 
>         An early ran of the API difference is available here:
> 
>         http://primates.ximian.com/~jackson/net_2_0/class-status.html
> 
>         We will automate this process and upload to mono-project.com on
>         a constant basis.
> 
> * Tinderbox setup
> 
>         Duncan has setup a tinderbox setup that keeps a close eye on
>         both the stable and unstable branches of Mono, you can see the
>         state of the build here:
> 
>                 http://www.go-mono.com:8008/
> 
> * Some recent developments
> 
>         A few interesting developments have happened recently on the
>         HEAD version of Mono:
> 
>                 * A new, more robust, more complete, more aggressive
>                   Arrays Bounds Check Elimination.
> 
>                 * Many x86 code generation peephole optimizations.
> 
>                 * A new mechanism that removes static roots from the GC
>                   to scan, and it already gave some nice performance
>                   improvements to mcs and specially small applications.
> 
>                   This work is part of an ongoing effort to implement
>                   a precise collector.
> 
>                 * Mod_Mono reduced latency with a new protocol, more
>                   options to control the child process.
> 
>                 * Work has started on Web.Services 2 and XML 2.
> 
>                 * More work on the Mono Debugger.
> 
>                 * S390 JIT improvements from Neale.
> 
>                 * JIT 64 bit cleanup (in preparation for SPARC v9 and
>                   AMD64)
> 
> Miguel.
> 
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