[Mono-list] Advice Needed / Cross-Platform Server Application

[Greg Deward]

Thanks, guys.  This is starting to flush out what I'm looking for.  Again, I'm not really looking for what can theoretically be used but, instead, hoping to find a consensus of the best mix of technologies.  For example, David has successfully used MVC, Debian and Postgres while developing within Visual Studio.  This shows me several newbie-valuable facts...

	... he found success outside to SUSE (the interwebs claim this SUSE is preferred by some)
	... he chose Visual Studio instead of MonoDevelop or Xamanian's tool
	... MVC was able to be used
	... Postgres has successfully been used

Some of the general questions that I am trying to answer are...

	a. What linux distros are easiest to deploy a Mono solution within?
	b. Is there a benefit to using one IDE over another?
	c. What databases and ORMs are being used in a cross-platform environment?
	d. Is anyone using any commercial SDKs successfully (Telerik, Infragistics, Syncfusion, etc.)?
	e. ... whatever else may be helpful.

Again, I know there are a ton of theoretical answers discussion what SHOULD work.  I also know life tends to determine what really DOES work well versus what kinda works.  I'm hoping for a few examples where people have said, "I build this nTier client-server cross-platform solution using Microsoft technologies and successfully used Mono with ____ to do it."

Thanks, again.

- G. Deward



-----Original Message-----
From: David Schmitt [mailto:david at dasz.at] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2014 3:14 AM
To: Greg Deward
Cc: Mono (General Discussion)
Subject: Re: [Mono-list] Advice Needed / Cross-Platform Server Application

Hi Greg,

I'm currently running MVC applications with postgresql on mono on debian.
This is all developed in Visual Studio and compiled and nunit tested with jenkins on the target distribution.

I started off by compiling mono 2.x myself (using the parallel environments docs from the webpage) and now the packages seem to be catching up, and I'm currently in the process of switching to local backports of the official mono3 debian packages from experimental.

Overall I'm again and again amazed at how much works with mono, even if some things sometimes run into problems, or are only implemented on demand.
For example, nuget is totally usable on mono, if you don't feed it solution files.


Regards, David



On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 20:22:07 -0500, "Greg Deward" <greg.deward at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Could someone please provide some current proven real-world
recommendations
> for leveraging Microsoft-based technologies (C#, .NET, WCF / ASP.NET 
> MVC
/
> etc.) for building a large-scale cross-platform application while 
> minimizing licensing costs for the finished product?  I've been 
> reading about the various Mono packages, Xamarin, SUSE, etc., etc., 
> etc. and am thoroughly confused.  There are tons of discussions but 
> nobody really saying, "This
is
> how it's done" or "These are the tools and combinations we used to 
> build ____ successfully."
> 
>  
> 
> For what it's worth, SQL Server / C# / .NET / ASP.NET MVC / Windows 
> has been my primary environment since around 2000.  As much as I'd 
> love to
entertain
> the idea of using Objective-C, Java, or some other technology, I just
don't
> have the time to venture out that far.  I need to stick to the
technologies
> I know (as much as possible) while ensuring minimal licensing costs 
> for
my
> customers.  The thought of requiring a customer to spend $100's or
$1,000's
> for OS or database licensing is not something I want.
> 
>  
> 
> What are the easiest / most elegant tools (from a developer's
perspective)
> for doing this?  Is there a certain Linux distro that would be best 
> for
a
> target platform?  A best mix of tools like Xamarin and Mono?
> 
>  
> 
> Thanx, in advance.
> 
>  
> 
> - G. Deward