[Mono-list] Is Mono serious? Is Mono still alive?

Mon Nov 2 18:27:08 EST 2009

A few comments:

First, I think Mono is a fantastic platform that's making huge advances with
each release.  However, it simply doesn't compare with Microsoft .NET.  The
.NET Framework has hundreds of people working on it, a near unlimited
budget, and is the obvious choice for running .NET code.  It has one of the
most advanced garbage collectors ever written, has a huge arsonal of
profilers, code coverage tools, debuggers, third party frameworks, etc.  The
way I see it, the .NET name is associated with Microsoft and Microsoft has
somewhat of a bad rep in the open source community.  For this reason, those
who have made the decision to go open source most likely already steer away
from Microsoft based technologies.  Companies who are .NET enthusiasts most
likely have no problem running Windows servers at which point you might as
well just run the .NET Framework and runtime since it's free and is always
cutting edge.

Second, MonoDevelop is probably my favorite open source/free IDE (more so
than Eclipse or anything else I've used) but it's still far, far behind
Visual Studio.  VS looks great, is extremely flexible and has hands down the
most advanced debugger I've ever seen.  I can debug web apps, unmanaged
code, script code, whatever.  The only thing I've actually witnessed MD
being able to debug is managed console apps.  I work 99% on web applications
and until MD can debug web apps (on all platforms), it's totally useless to
me.  Until it can debug script code, it's severely limited to me.  I imagine
by the time it does all this, VS 2010 will be out and set an even higher bar
for MD to follow.

To summarize, Mono is a great platform and I appreciate all the effort that
goes into it, but I think companies either "embrace the Microsoft world" and
use Windows/.NET/VS or they "embrace the open source world" and use LAMP or
Java and Eclipse.  Trying to say "This platform Microsoft invented is great,
we've ported it over to the open source world but it's of course not as good
as the real thing" is a tough sell to many companies..

Mike

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 9:03 AM, Stifu <stifu at free.fr> wrote:

>
> Mono is alive and kicking. Other than the number of posts here and on
> monologue (http://www.go-mono.com/monologue/), which clearly shows Mono is
> nowhere near dead (unlike, say, dotGNU), the gap between Mono 2.0 (last
> year) and Mono 2.6 speaks volume about how fast things are moving.
>
> 1) I take it you saw roadmap? http://mono-project.com/Roadmap
> As far as I know, other than WPF, pretty much everything in .NET is planned
> for implementation in Mono.
> The class status page (http://go-mono.com/status/) is also interesting,
> although it doesn't tell you about future goals.
> I believe Miguel said about a dozen of Novell devs worked on Mono (+
> contributors), I don't know much other than that.
>
> 2-3) I agree about the lack of updated content / documentation... I believe
> Olive (or part of it?) was merged with the main Mono branch at some point,
> but I don't know the details.
>
> 4) I'd pick MonoDevelop over Eclipse, personally. Although less mature,
> MonoDevelop is lighter and faster, and has just the features I need. It
> just
> needs to be polished some more (stability improvements, bugs fixing, OS
> parity by, for example, adding debugger support for everything on every
> OS...). MonoDevelop has been worked on for years, and with the relatively
> recent additions of debugging + Windows and OSX support, I guess the bulk
> of
> the work has already been done. If MonoDevelop had only just been started,
> I
> may agree with you, but MonoDevelop is there right now and already works
> fine.
> That said, that doesn't prevent Eclipse-enthusiasts from looking into Mono
> with Eclipse, but I don't think Novell should bother at this point.
>
> All of that said, few companies use (or even know) about Mono... which is a
> shame. Hope that ends up changing.
>
>
> cmdematos wrote:
> >
> > I don't want to stir up a hornets nest. It is my intent to see Mono as a
> > strong enough offering to be able to recommend medium to large companies
> > to commit to an Open technology stack that includes (and relies on) Mono.
> > Forgive me if I am not well informed, I am definitely well intended.
> >
> > The following are issues that stop this from reaching any sort of
> reality:
> > 1) There is no visible Mono timeline and release plan. What is Mono's
> > intent and stated goals for the future? Will it try to maintain parity
> > with Microsoft Dot.Net to some level, and if so what level and by what
> > time-line?
> >   1.1) What are mono's resources?
> >   1.2) Who are mono's sponsors?
> >   1.3) Are we resourcing up to maintain pace with our plans?
> >
> > 2) Many projects that should be enablers of achieving a reasonably parity
> > with Microsoft Dot.Net have not been updated since Dec 2008 (such as
> > Olive) If these are no longer strategic the thinking behind this should
> be
> > made transparent.
> >
> > 3) The mono site has a mix of outdated pages statuses and some (very
> > little) new content. I agree that the code is more important than the
> > site, but it is less than professional to not date each page edit and
> > structure the site so that the latest status and pages are always
> > guaranteed to be clear and navigable. Please fix this.
> >
> > 4) Is mono executing the best strategy (as in - what is best for Mono and
> > the Open Source community) by relying on Mono-Develop? Could we not
> > implement (or at least explore) mono on Eclipse or Netbeans IDE's and
> > concentrate our efforts instead on integrating to a fully mature IDE
> > infrastructure instead of developing YAIDE from scratch without a
> > snow-balls hope in hades of keeping up with the other IDE's? Just a
> > thought. I suggest that the Mono-Project look into the other IDE's, it
> > wont slow down Mono-Develop any and more choice would be good here.
> >
> > Thoughts? Ideas? Comments?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://old.nabble.com/Is-Mono-serious--Is-Mono-still-alive--tp26132878p26133629.html
>  Sent from the Mono - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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