[Mono-winforms-list] Windows Forms.

Geoff Taylor geoff@opinionatedgeek.com
Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:20:04 -0000


Greg Brown wrote:
>
> In Java, while it is possible to write code that makes calls to native
> APIs, it is generally not necessary, and is often discouraged. The JDK
> was designed to minimize or eliminate the need to do so for all but
> the most performance-intensive tasks. The .NET framework is similarly
> designed, which leads me to believe that the development philosophy
> would also be similar. Basing the fundamental design of Mono/WinForms
> on the need to support a particular platform-specific API (e.g. COM)

I don't think that's quite what was meant.  As I understand it, the idea is
that we implement System.Windows.Forms so that calls to WndProc work (and
WindProc is a part of the System.Windows.Forms API, not a native call), and
so that P/Invoke to a standard Windows DLL (such as USER32.DLL) also works.
COM and native interfaces seems to be widening the scope of the discussion a
lot.

As you say, maybe we do just have different goals.  Personally, my ideal
would be that someone can install Mono and run a .NET application, even if
that wasn't what the developer of that application intended.  I can't see
that working in practice without either using WINE or effectively
re-implementing WINE and the Windows API.

> seems like it will just enable and encourage bad programming practice.

The more code I see, the more I agree with the phrase "You can write Fortran
in any language".

            Geoff
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