I don't get Mono
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Feb 14, 2005 2:04 PM EDT |
Maybe I'm just being dim, but I don't get Mono. Or .Net either, but that is partly due to my involuntary self-protective brain-shutdown whenever anything microsoft tries to pollute my consciousness. Are there any actual live Mono-based projects? Are real people using it? Can you go to Sourceforge and find Mono stuff to play with? |
| PaulFerris Feb 14, 2005 2:14 PM EDT |
tuxxy: you don't get mono because you're not kissing the right people... Or is it the wrong people? -- my mom used to warn me a lot about this sort of thing -- too bad I lost all of those memory cells in the last Fosters binge. |
| tuxchick Feb 14, 2005 3:42 PM EDT |
Hmm. It still sounds mysterious, but since it's as simple as being selective about who to suck face with, deployment at least presents no difficulties. |
| PaulFerris Feb 14, 2005 4:11 PM EDT |
From what limited memory I have, deployment is really dependent upon how much garlic I ate that day. |
| MESMERIC Feb 14, 2005 6:04 PM EDT |
.NET was a technology I've learnt before migrating to Linux. I program in C# and make pages using ASP.NET C# is a cute language and feels more intuitive than Java - way more intuitive. ASP.NET however is slow and cumbersome - but if you strip out all of the ASP.NET you can gain speed. Which is what I do - serve pure xHTML (using XML.XSLT) So to some extend my code is portable. Despite being a .NET programmer (and I don't say that with pride), .NET aims to be a better version of Java. Obviously. The attractiveness of Java is that it possesses garbage collection and a virtual machine where you can have other languages compiled into it. Write something in Cobol for JVM (eeks) and run everywhere! .NET and Java are bytecode interpreted. The other advantage is that it possesses a lot of "newbie" friendly resources. So the casual programmer can pick it up easier than say Perl or QT/GTk Miguel thought of porting .NET to Linux as the Mono initiative. But that is exciting only for .NET developers, as that means that lil app you wrote for Windows could eventually be very easily ported to Linux without needing to recompile without that huge learning curve in having to learn Python say. Mono therefore is of no interest to a hardcore Linux develop or veteran. It is a purely migrating thing - like Wine. I am neutral on Mono. At times it feels interesting and exciting. At other times it seems to create many disparities among members of the community which makes many feel uncomfortable. Oh and Mono means monkey in spanish .. hence the logo :) |
| dinotrac Feb 14, 2005 6:31 PM EDT |
Actually, you underestimate the value of Mono. First, as you pointed out, a lot of people like using C# and .Net. I work in a Java shop and, when talking the talk, the javaboyz will sing the praises. When I look around, however, they don't seem to be having any fun. Judging from the applications I see, listening to the shop-talk I hear, an alternative to java can only be considered a good thing. Second, it's more than writing Windows things that will run on Linux. It is writing Linux things that will run on Windows. Third, there are an awful lot of .Net programmers out there now. I've had to interact with a few. Wish I'd been up on Mono at the time, as it would have helped me work with them more easily. Mono is a Good Thing. Period. |
| tuxchick Feb 14, 2005 9:08 PM EDT |
The Mono in question is a Bonobo monkey. The Bonobos are famous for their casual promiscuity- anything and everything goes, and anytime is the right time. As I understand it, Miguel chose the Bonobo as the mascot because "it plugs into everything." So is anyone actually doing development with Mono? Is it too closely tied to Gnome to be useful to non-Gnome users? |
| Koriel Feb 15, 2005 12:24 AM EDT |
I agree with dino, i do really, I was doing java for a year creating a run anywhere on a web browser personnel tracking system for use in the North Sea running on HP-Unix, and Oracle 8i. The greatest advantage of java is its close to run anywhere nature. But did i enjoy it? Nope not really, i enjoyed the working within a team and system design overall but not the java langauge itself. Anyways im back soloing in C, im sure my mother said i would go blind if i kept doing that. |
| MESMERIC Feb 15, 2005 5:17 AM EDT |
If I was ever a monkey I would be a Bonobo too :) @dino despair not - for Mono is far from ready! you still can't get one single Windows.Form GUI to run on Linux under Mono. the only thing that works on Mono are CLI apps and ASP.NET (up to a point some libraries are still missing like SqlServer which most MS apps will have) still they are developing as fast as poss the Windows.Forms port now using Cairo. .NET webapps are dreadfully slow - just have a look at orkut to get the idea. great for tiny shops - disaster for big enterprises (unless you have farms and farms of servers at your disposal) webforms are eeky - the controls are non-compliant, non-accessible, non-compatible with many browsers/platforms. again .NET appeals only for the MS / Java / .NET developer not the Linux veteran. and hence the controversial nature oh and it sprung from MS .. so more antagonism from many. C# is kinda cute but Eiffel is much prettier (only problem is - Eiffel doesn't work under .NET like it's supposed to) @Tuxchic You can write apps with QT# as well as GTK# apparently you can get things up and running pretty fast. If you manage to install all those dreaded libraries. I gave up trying. |
| AnonymousCoward Feb 15, 2005 1:49 PM EDT |
Dinotrac: show them Ruby. Yes, really. (-: |
| dinotrac Feb 15, 2005 4:32 PM EDT |
Ruby? But it took me so long to go from perl to python, that I don't think I'll live long enough to get that far in the alphabet... Oh - wait - there is all that xml stuff. Does that mean I have to start over? Could I at least skip ahead to erlang? |
| PaulFerris Feb 15, 2005 4:53 PM EDT |
erlang? What about cobol? |
| dinotrac Feb 15, 2005 7:14 PM EDT |
COBOL? N-O-O-O-O!!!!!!! It's a funny thing, though. I had to learn COBOL as a right of passage when I joined the still Ross Perot-led EDS. I was working in the Systems software group, doing performance/capacity planning measurement and reporting. The languages I used were a very strange amalgam of very high level (SAS) and low (System 370 assembly language). However, all newbies were expected to go through the Systems Engineer Development Program, which, at the time I took it, was all COBOL. Seven days a week, all day, all night, all COBOL. I still break out in sweats. |
| AnonymousCoward Feb 16, 2005 5:40 AM EDT |
MESMERIC: there is no huge learning curve to picking up Python. It's a very straightforward language compared to (say) Java or C++. Ruby is in a way not as simple to pick up. It is so totally, almost painstakingly orthogonal that after using other languages one tends to come to Ruby and repeat the other lanugages' mistakes because you can. Dinotrac, are you listening for this next bit? Ruby is fun. Once you get the hang of it, it's terribly easy and terribly powerful. Once you stop peering around the corner looking for the next unexpected restriction (which is never there), the epiphany arrives and everything just unsticks and flows. It's kind of like leaving BorgLand for a real OS - once you stop saving every five minutes lest the machine go down in flames, taking your work with it; once you stop flinching when you click on a new link, the whole experience becomes enjoyable. It's like discovering computers all over again. Hmm. Looking back on this, it all sounds terribly right-brained for a bloke. Perhaps a more concrete analogy? It's like going from The GIMP 2.0 to The GIMP 2.2; very few of the differences are revolutionary but an awful lot of small, almost unnoticeable annoyances have been fixed. Controls are right where you need them rather than half a screen and three levels of menus away. Things that once required three steps and a script are now one built-in click. All of the little doohickeys have a preview window so you can experiment with an effect "live" - in real time - instead of "try, wait forever, wrong, undo, iterate". In terms of workflow the nett effect of the zillion small improvements is like going from sandpaper to teflon. |
| Tsela Feb 16, 2005 5:55 AM EDT |
AnonymousCoward, I could never have explained it better than you. I tried Perl and Python, and couldn't write a single line of code. I could read code, but when trying to write some it was never right, and I couldn't get why. And it was anything *but* fun. And then I discovered Ruby, and everything fell into place! The language behaves *exactly* like I want it, and in the rare occurrence when it doesn't, the reason why is usually understandable and even *fun*! :) And now I have plenty of Ruby scripts around, doing plenty of little, or not little, things, and they just work! Ruby just feels like it fits neatly in my brains :) . I didn't have to adapt to Ruby, it looks more like the language adapts to *me*. And for me, that's the minimum I ask for my tools :) . |
| dinotrac Feb 16, 2005 8:37 AM EDT |
Hmmmm....... Sounds like I may have to give Ruby a look. Why not have yet another language to screw me up? It's bad enough that xslt slips into my perl slips into my python slips into my C slips into my SQL .... well, you get the idea. What could be more fun than tripping over something that works in a way completely different from the things I can convince people to pay me for? ;0) While I'm at it, sounds like I need to upgrade from Gimp 2.0... |
| PaulFerris Feb 16, 2005 8:39 AM EDT |
"While I'm at it, sounds like I need to upgrade from Gimp 2.0..." Without a doubt -- your fake photo edits of me were obvious to anyone with an untrained eye. |
| dinotrac Feb 16, 2005 10:34 AM EDT |
Paulie, Paulie, Paulie: Not everyone can go to the U of Eye. |
| MESMERIC Feb 16, 2005 2:53 PM EDT |
I hate Steve Jobs more than Bill Gates. Yet I feel powerless. Hatred churns my stomach and chars my soul :( |
| AnonymousCoward Feb 17, 2005 3:19 AM EDT |
Oh, Dino, you want to get paid for writing in Ruby? In that case you probably want to take a dekko at Ruby on Rails: http://www.rubyonrails.org/ "Rails is a full-stack, open-source web framework in Ruby for writing real-world applications with joy and less code than most frameworks spend doing XML sit-ups" and yes, they are serious. (-: I'm planning to call my first major Rails app "Out Of Town" so I can claim, "I've written Out Of Town on Rails". (-: |
| MESMERIC Feb 17, 2005 7:12 AM EDT |
does any of you do GUI with RUBY? |
| Tsela Feb 17, 2005 7:36 AM EDT |
MESMERIC: I've dabbled with fxruby (FOX toolkit), but nothing serious. I must say though that I've had more fun with that way of GUI making than with GUI making with other languages. Ruby's closures make it feel very natural to connect code to events. I haven't tried any other GUI framework with Ruby, so I don't know how it fares with GT or QT... I know there are a few IDEs around that can make Ruby code. I haven't tried them though. Once again, I've only dabbled with GUI and Ruby, so I had no problem coding everything myself. |
| MESMERIC Feb 17, 2005 8:36 AM EDT |
ok downloading..
am looking for an entry point for RAD/GUI programming in Linux
maybe fxruby is all I need?
I will try that thanks loads |
| dinotrac Feb 17, 2005 8:42 AM EDT |
I'm planning to call my first major Rails app "Out Of Town" so I can claim, "I've written Out Of Town on Rails". (-: Now I know why you stay anonymous! |
| Tsela Feb 17, 2005 11:54 AM EDT |
MESMERIC: Well, fxruby is just a Ruby module. It's easy to program a GUI using it, but I doubt you can call that RAD/GUI programming ;) . As for GUI builders, there are a few out there, but most are in early stages of development. I can think of foxGUIb, Locana, specRuby... (http://raa.ruby-lang.org/cat.rhtml?category_major=Applicatio...). There is somewhere a commercial GUI builder but I can't remember where. But those are already good entry points for RAD/GUI programming in Ruby. It is just unfortunate that they are so early in their development yet... |
| AnonymousCoward Feb 17, 2005 1:42 PM EDT |
MESMERIC: KDevelop does Ruby (Ruby/Qt especially). Tsela: wxRuby is also good. and Ruby/SDL for games and embedded stuff (there are a few Ruby libraries which extend that, too, like specific coverage for OpenGL). |
| Tsela Feb 17, 2005 10:58 PM EDT |
AnonymousCoward: Last time I had checked it, wxRuby was extremely limited. Maybe they advanced a bit since I checked :) . I know about the rest, I just never have had a reason to try it :) . As for KDevelop, I had looked at it but never saw that it could do Ruby. I'll have to take a look at it again... Ruby is great, but its status of "New Kid on the Block" in Western countries can make it difficult to find mature applications and libraries (not to mention documentation). This gap is quickly being filled, but that began late enough that we are still in the process. |
| MESMERIC Feb 18, 2005 8:14 AM EDT |
ever one heard of Rubyx ? its a distro that uses Ruby as its installer and other things. I almost downloaded it once. I am sure the Ruby-fans know about it - but if you don't check it out http://www.rubyx.org |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!