Thanks, although I’m more impressed to know someone was using my specious reasoning as basis for an argument!

Fair enough. My intent wasn’t to bash Mono, just to explain why I don’t use it. If Mono makes you happy, or makes you money, or both, then more power to you. It seems my post here did come off as inflammatory, I didn’t mean for it to be a whole “I hate Mono or .NET” thing, but it seems people take it that way. No hard feelings.

Sorry for my aggressiveness. I am just sick of people who is bashing mono unfairly. I will carry on my career on mono (and not ms.net if not cumpolsory). So I want mono to gain a large user base. Sure it is not perfect that we can critisize .But unfair comments bring up nothing. Sorry again

Wait, what?

Let me address your points as they come up.

Sun and IBM are just as bad as Microsoft. Red Hat and Novell would also be bullies if they just had the size… Nobody pays nice.

Sure, but I’m not talking about anyone else. I’m talking specifically about Microsoft. Maybe it’s a non-issue, but I don’t trust them.

C# and the CLR are standards.

Yes they are. I don’t have any beef there. But there are things developed on top of the CLR (ASP.NET for instance) that aren’t covered by that umbrella. Furthermore, when Microsoft and Novell’s deal runs out then all bets are off. Again, I’m not saying this is a real issue, but it’s definitely something to be conscious of.

Gtk# is build on top of Gtk+ which was not developed by Microsoft.

…yeah? That was my point. It doesn’t matter, I was misinformed about the state of Windows Forms on Mono, so I suppose you could do a Windows Forms app and compile it seamlessly on Linux.

Being more afraid of a language or technology because it was developed by Microsoft is certainly prejudice. You would have to only use hardware and software you build yourself to limit your exposure. And even then, we live in a litigious society and you could still get stuck. Is the risk really that high? From what I read, Sun was worse.

I didn’t say I wasn’t prejudiced. I said I wasn’t a zealot. There is an ocean of difference there. I don’t know what you mean about “only [using] hardware and software you build yourself to limit your exposure.” Microsoft doesn’t build hardware, and I’m not using a single bit of Microsoft software right now, and I didn’t write a bit of it. I’m not saying Mono users are all going to be sued one day, but I’m just saying that if I develop something in Ruby or Python or what have you I don’t ever have to worry that Microsoft will some day decide they no longer like the Python runtime and put the kibosh on it. Mono users right now don’t have to worry a bit about that thanks to Novell’s agreement with MS, but that will run out one day. So no, the risk isn’t high.

1. One of the problems with Mono is that some of the enterprise distros (Red Hat should be called out here) are WAY behind. Make sure you get version 1.9 or greater which your distro may not ship with.

That’s something to be aware of, for sure.

We are calm. We don’t appreciate FUD. By perpetuating the myth that Mono is not mature enough to be used by professionals, you are hindering the adoption of a very useful technology.

I’m flattered that you think anything I do here perpetuates a myth, or is FUD. I never said Mono wasn’t useful. I’m willing to admit that parts of the above article are inaccurate, but that’s why I closed with “If any of my reasons are off, feel free to let me know in the comments.” — this was to encourage feedback if I was indeed incorrect. Nor did I say it shouldn’t be used by professionals. Where are you getting these from?

To be fair, I don’t consider myself a zealot. Not liking Microsoft products and wanting to distance myself from that platform doesn’t make me a zealot. Being cautious about hopping in bed with technologies that may be open to litigation from a gigantic company known for it’s dirty business practices is not zealotry.

But there are a lot of interesting points here. I don’t think I’ll pick up Mono for any of my day-to-day coding needs, but I might give it a shot to see how things go.

Also, @Onur: I realize we’re on the intertuberweb and tone is hard to convey, but that seemed harsh. Calm down, nobody’s spreading FUD.

You’re right in that there is a disconnect between Microsoft’s implementation and Mono’s. However, take something like Silverlight and the DLR. Due to the licensing, the DLR can run on top of Mono, without modification, on any platform. Within a week of the announcement of silverlight (and the DLR), the Mono people had a working prototype of their version, Moonlight, and it’s come leaps and bounds since then.

I could go on and on. Mono has done some amazing things, not just with .NET, but creating their own feature set as well. There are several things that are completely unique to Mono. For example, if you are a big fan of reflection, you should try out Cecil, which blows Reflection.Emit out of the water.

Besides, the first time you write an app in visual studio, compile it, transfer the assembly to a linux box and run it without modification - that’s just fuckin’ cool. Or if you write it in Linux, compile it on OS X, and run it on windows - ditto. You should try it sometime!

I would go so far as to say the only thing that has really been worth anything coming from microsoft in the last decade or so has been .NET.

If I write a Windows Forms application, then that’s the end of it right there

False. What does not work is P/Invoke.

You absolutely cannot run that under Mono.

You absolutely can. Applications that were not targetted to run on Mono can run on Mono today. Including really complicated things like Paint.Net.

Now, if we start with something like GTK#, then we avoid this problem, but there are similar pitfalls for things like ADO.NET and ASP.NET.

Wrong again. Also, Gtk# does not really need ASP.NET.

Mono is always going to lag behind Microsoft’s .NET implementation.

Yes and no. It may lag on some features, but move ahead of .Net in other features.

Finally, I’m just not enthused about promoting technology that Microsoft made popular

I would expect more from a zealot. Something like “Microsoft stole Java and called it .Net” (which is sort of true and the best form of flattery). A better argument might be about the libraries, tool maturity and existing bindings in Java. JSS is a huge asset to Java for example. MonoDevelop is years behind JBuilder and will be for a while. Of course, there is nothing inherently better in Java (or in being backed by Sun versus Novell).

I admit to being a Mono proponent, but only because I am a C# and CLR enthusiast. The fact that I could take my skills from Windows to Linux and get right to work was invaluable for me. My learning curve is with GTK# and not with the language and libraries. There are good reasons not to use .Net, but I did not see them in your post. Happy programming in whatever language/VM you choose. I recommend targeting Plan 9. It is the successor to Unix developed by the same folks that brought us C and Unix. Parrot is a good second choice as it copies the register versus stack based Plan 9 VM though it suffers from much worse immaturity than Mono and not being the first will most likely bother you.

Checkout these screenshots of ‘Plastic’ (a sourcecode control system) running under Mono on Linux and Mac OS - fantastic eye candy:

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2008/Jan-03-1.html

Michael Foord