[Mono-winforms-list] Windows Forms.

[Brian C]

Which of the following does the Mono community want to
enable:
1) Make it simple for developers that wish to create
cross-platform apps to write them in C# and run them
on Mono, or
2) Allow ANY .NET application that was written for
windows to run on Linux, including those that use
unmanaged code (P/Invoke calls)?

If 1), then it should be OK to tell developers to
avoid using P/Invoke.

If 2), then we will face all of the classic
interoperability problems that WINE (as opposed to
WineLib) has now.  Many software development companies
will be grafting .NET code onto legacy MFC
applications. If Mono doesn't work with 100% of the
apps, it will soon get a reputation for being buggy
and unreliable.  Overcoming that reputation may prove
difficult unless there is a set of apps that
have been designed to run well on Mono.

>From reading this thread, I think the likely answer is
that ideally we want both 1) AND 2).  If we can get to
1) via a few quick fixes to WineLib, then great!  If 
we can't, IMHO I think it's worth considering putting
together an alternate namespace (e.g.
Systems.Windows.FormsQt) in parallel with the
work being done by the WineLib community.  Switching
between SWF and SWFQt would be a simple change to
make to an application's code. SWFQt can have exactly
the same class structure as SWF, be built on top
of Qt# (or SWFGtk on top of GTK#), would have class
libraries that run the same on Windows and Linux, and
would be simpler to port to other CPUs as well (e.g.
StrongARM, PPC).  

FWIW, I'm interested in helping.

Brian Cruickshank

--- Geoff Taylor <geoff@opinionatedgeek.com> wrote:

> ...The point is
> not whether or not
> developers _should_ be doing a DllImport, the point
> is that they _are_ doing
> it.  And if we just say "that app won't run because
> they didn't develop it
> right", that will not lead to more people using Mono
> - it will lead to more
> people using .NET on Windows, just because it works.
> 
>             Geoff



__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com