[Mono-osx] OSX Reality Check

[Allan Hsu]

I'm currently working on porting a windows client application written  
in C# (available at http://www.imeem.com) to OS X. We've peeled away  
the Windows-specific code and are running the managed code within an  
embedded Mono instance. We're writing the interface in native Cocoa/ 
Objective-C because native look-and-feel is important to us. We wrote  
a bridging layer between the Cocoa AppKit/Objective-C and the Mono  
embedded runtime that makes this pretty easy. We plan on eventually  
contributing the bridging layer back to Mono, but this may not happen  
until some time opens up in our development schedule.

We had to do minimal alterations to our non-Windows-specific code to  
get it to run properly under OS X. Mono really does help in that  
regard. One of the biggest issues we have yet to confront is figuring  
out how to package Mono and its dependencies with our application  
(for various reasons, relying on users to maintain their own Mono  
installations is undesirable for us).

Also, there are a few outstanding bugs with Mono on OS X that may or  
may not be important to you. The biggest bug for us is that  
asynchronous TCP socket connects don't seem to work at all. This bug  
seems to be the reason why the MySQL.NET connector doesn't work under  
OS X.

OS X doesn't seem to get as much developer attention as the more  
popular ports, but most of the important bits are there.

In my experience, Mono on OS X performs roughly on par with Mono on  
x86. The only in-depth benchmarking I've done is with the AES/ 
Rijndael implementation; here are my numbers:

http://lists.ximian.com/pipermail/mono-devel-list/2005-July/013127.html

The big difference between Mono and the MS.NET performance is  
partially due to unoptimized implementation and partially due to  
worse JIT optimization. AES is a severe case; most of the time, Mono  
is plenty fast.

Prime Time? I don't know. It's entirely possible to ship a real  
product using Mono on OS X, but it occasionally requires you to get  
out and push...

     -Allan

--
Allan Hsu <allan at counterpop dot net>
1E64 E20F 34D9 CBA7 1300  1457 AC37 CBBB 0E92 C779


On Oct 25, 2005, at 8:41 AM, Roger Mann wrote:

> .... oops missing subject... sorry for sending this twice
>
>
> Hi
>
> I'm new to the list.
>
> We are evaluating Mono for Mac OSX...in hopes of being able to  
> share code between Mac & Windows( .Net development).
>
> I would love hear from any developer's 'real-world'  experiences.
>
> Is Mac Mono ready for Prime Time?...or will be ready by say Spring 06?
>
> Any Mac developers working on shipping Mac products ....embedding  
> Mono?
>
> Any real numbers on performance?
>
>
> I spoke to Erik Dasque, and played with the 'Embedded Samples'...so  
> far so good.
>
> Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks
> -Roger
>
> Software
> Harman Music Group
>
>
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