[Mono-osx] Delphi Prism and all those Cocoa bridges

[marc hoffman]

Matt,

>>> I'm sure Mark won't take offence if I also say, using a VM to run  
>>> Visual Studio and then running Interface Builder on the Mac is a  
>>> complete and total kludge.
>>
>> i somewhat agree, and somewhat disagree. i dislike having to use a  
>> VM, as well, but it's important to remember that "real" Mac  
>> developers using Xcode and Objective-C, too have Interface Builder  
>> as a separate application.
> Interface builder isn't a problem. The problem really is that Visual  
> studio isn't a Mac app and so it doesn't feel "right". More personal  
> preference I guess. This and running Parallels on a Macbook vs Mac  
> Pro = no fun at all.

preaching to the choir here, yes. i'm looking forwartd to the day i  
can get rid of my VMs altogether (except for testing - after all, we  
still do ship to Windows developers, may god have mercy on them. ;P)

>>> A MonoDevelop version would really improve the situation, so let's  
>>> hope that happens :-)
>>
>> it exists now. we just cannot ship it while MD is under GPL. :(
>
> Would this be for Delphi Prism or will C# be supported.

well, MD as is supports C#. what we'd want to add is Prism integration

> Indeed, does Delphi Prism's templates and such include support for  
> C# with regards to the Mac platform?

No. the core of Prism is our Oxygene compiler and the related IDE  
integration and functionality. As far as Prism is concerned, C#  
doesn't exist (in fact, if you don't own Visual Studio and install  
Prism fresh, you get a Visual Studio that knows *only* Prism projects.

> I could see a pull for me on that front - supporting Mac C# dev in  
> Visual studio, with real projects instead of hacks - this would be  
> something I'd pay for. It would be bundled, but also could be  
> available stand alone. If it was stand alone, I don't see it being  
> an expensively priced product. Financially, it would possibly not be  
> worth developing, but what a gift it could be to the Mac community  
> if it was free :-) How about it? Code bounty?

it's a tough call. on the one hand, sure, i'd love to make all the  
good stuff we're doing for Prism available to C# as well. On the  
other, we do pay the rent by selling Prism, so moving features that  
make Prism unique out of Prism, we undercut the value of Prism. Sure,  
the Mono support is only one of many things (and many of Prisms  
advantages are core compiler technology). But every bit helps, and  
it's a major selling point for Prism if we can yes "yes, there's the  
language itself, which is way ahead of C#. but there's also all this  
other infrastructure it provides, on top of that". if we just remove  
that (and give it away for C#, too), we decrease the value of Prism...

yours,
marc