[Mono-winforms-list] Windows Forms.

[Geoff Taylor]

Greg Brown wrote:
>
> Just my 2 cents, but I would much prefer a Winforms platform
> implemented using native widgets that gets me, say, 95% compatibility
> with .NET than one implemented on top of an emulation layer that
> *may* get me 100% compatibility. Mono is going to have enough trouble
> playing catch-up with .NET as it is. Adding WINE into the mix is just
> asking for more headaches in the long run.

What's the point of .NET on Linux if it won't run .NET apps?  Surely 100% is
the goal - if Mono can't take advantage of all the programs that are being
or will be written for .NET, why would anyone install Mono?  There'll always
be faster native code compilers, better windowing toolkits for specific
tasks, better languages for specific domains, and so on.  I thought Mono was
there to bring about a common platform independent of the OS and programming
language.

> It is possible, and likely, that a large number of applications
> written for Winforms will not require calls into Windows-specific
> APIs.

I'm not at all convinced of this.  It's true that application developers
often don't need to go to that level, but control developers often _do_ need
to.  (At least in my experience of .NET applications and controls.)  So
having an emulation layer which doesn't have this level of detail means that
Mono will be limited to running applications that don't use controls
developed for .NET on Windows, the very opposite of the componentisation
approach .NET is encouraging.

> Also, it is not
> unusual for application developers to write some amount of custom
> code for each different platform on which a given product is
> supported.

Isn't this what .NET is trying to get away from?  Again, surely one of
Mono's goals is to take advantage of the .NET applications out there written
for Windows, by making them available on Linux and other Unix systems.  It
can't do that if it requires each Windows developer (some of whom can't even
spell 'Linux' let alone use it) to change their code.

> In these cases, it is arguably more desirable for the
> application to maintain consistency with the native windowing system
> than compatibility with low-level Windows-specific services that are
> not even being used.


Personally, I don't think so.  I think it is more important that
applications run consistently whether they are using Mono or MS' .NET
implementation.  It shouldn't matter to users how this is done, what
dependencies Mono has, what the native toolkit is, all that should matter is
that there's a .NET executable and it runs on Mono.  If the EXE needs to
make a call to the base class library, surely it should work on Mono just
the way it would on Windows.  No?  If not, how can Mono hope to be anything
other than a nice Linux/Unix programming system?

            Geoff

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