[Mono-list] Learning Mono just like .NET?

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 20:47 -0800, stevemcc wrote:
> So I am a college student interested in programming. I've done some
> programming, just a little bit in java, python, VB, and php. I noticed
> theres a lot of demand for .NET developers and I use linux most of the time.
> Is mono close enough .net that learning mono would prepare me for an
> eventually job that might require me to develop using .NET and windows. 

Absolutely, yes.  Especially since there is effectively no Mono
specific / .NET-on-LINUX  documentation.  I've used just the
O'Reilly .NET related texts and been very productive with Mono.

> Or are they close, but still different beasts?

There are platform specific bits; but the bulk of your code/programming
will be unaffected by platform.  The primary issue will be with OS
integration (like System.Management) and issues with UI stuff (but
widget libraries are always a pain and a moving target).  

Also there are some parts of .NET that aren't available in Mono (like
WCF, WPF, WWF, CAS, & System.Management) as well as the occasional thing
that just won't build (like DbLinq
<http://groups.google.com/group/dblinq>).