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Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

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Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#241

Post by nathas »

codeshaman wrote: post #179

Good move, but (too) late. The move is designed to attract iOS and Android Devs to .NET. But let's see: As an iOS developer, I've invested years in learning Objective-C and Cocoa, UIKit, etc. Now I'm starting with Swift. I'm sure a lot of iOS devs feel this way. Besides, if I can't use it from OSX, then I'm out. Why should I forget everything and learn C#/.NET ? If I want a write-once-run-everywhere thing, then I cou…

I think it's much more of a "I already write C#, so now I can write apps for other platforms without needing to learn their language!"

That leads to further evangelism at conferences, more talk about how C# is great and the platform is excellent, etc. I think they hope to persuade entire dev shops to switch over, rather than single devs, in a very long-term sort of way -- even if it's just a small percentage that change, the press is potentially worth it. MS has an image problem, and this would help mobilize their core to speak to more of the good parts.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#242

Post by jacquesm »

byte1918 wrote: post #223
jacquesm wrote: post #77

It's funny how Nadella has moved the needle more for developers in 9 months than Ballmer did in the last decade or so, and all that without running around like a madman too. Pretty good. I'll never switch back to MS for what they've done in the past but it is nice to see them try hard to become a nicer player in the software eco-system. Google and Apple need some other party to keep them sharp, it might as well be MS…

You can understand and even state that these changes are a consequence of a new CEO that has different ideas and behavior compared to previous CEOs. And you even "blame" by describing the previous CEO as a "madman" but still don't want to give Microsoft a chance because at one point in time some previous higher-up made a decision with which you did not agree. Makes PERFECT SENSE!

Yes, it makes perfect sense. Maybe not to you but it does to me. See, if in the future some other CEO sees an opportunity to screw over a competitor, to try to destroy a viable eco-system based on open source tech or to destroy a company just because they can they may remember the case of Microsoft, and maybe that will steer them in the right direction.

I wish Microsoft the very best but I want no part of it and I'm totally free in making that decision based on their past behavior. Microsoft has had their chance with me, I probably developed as much or more code for the windows platform as I did for other platforms but right now I would consider myself pretty silly if I switched back to MS just because they may have changed their ways and deserve another chance. Those are not lightly made decisions, there is a huge amount of time and effort invested and I already switched once because of their behavior.

That said there is enough going on in the present that makes me wonder just how much they have really changed, they're still dragging their heels post judgement in several court cases where they have been ordered to start cooperating and have pulled a substantial number of annoying tricks in the recent past.

Never mind the 'microsoft tax' (which I paid on this machine even though it never ran MS software for even a single cycle) and so on. So yes, it makes perfect sense.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#243

Post by bussiere »

jjoonathan wrote: post #167
_random_ wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope not, this way we will see a bit more of healthy competition in the indie game engine space. This is something Unity desperately needs.

Honest question from an outsider: it looks like Epic and Crytek have finally gotten around to moving in to the "low-end" of the game engine market. What's still unique about unity?

Laziness. And your graphic designer can use it. As a lot of engine, it's nice when you want something simple very quick. But when you want to tweak it or make it things more specific it's a lot of time a pain in the *.

It can save time in the beginning and you will prototype early.

Easy to use and easy to access.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#244

Post by HeavyStorm »

eloisant wrote: post #186
jpgvm wrote: post #61

I'm a hardcore *nix guy but boy do I love me some C#. Up until now it's been the best language I have worked with but the worst platform due to it's lack of 'nice things' that we just expect from languages/ecosystems these days. Where 'nice things' is defined as being open-source, having open-source ecosystem of developer tools etc. This isn't so much the beginning (as good stuff has been happening for a couple of ye…

C# as a language is better than Java, but not as good as Scala.

Apples and Oranges, my friend.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#246

Post by garrettheaver »

eloisant wrote: post #186
jpgvm wrote: post #61

I'm a hardcore *nix guy but boy do I love me some C#. Up until now it's been the best language I have worked with but the worst platform due to it's lack of 'nice things' that we just expect from languages/ecosystems these days. Where 'nice things' is defined as being open-source, having open-source ecosystem of developer tools etc. This isn't so much the beginning (as good stuff has been happening for a couple of ye…

C# as a language is better than Java, but not as good as Scala.

As someone who has written applications in C#, Java and Scala (amongst others). I'd be curious as what makes you think Scala is a winner relative to C#?

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#247

Post by miguelrochefort »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #145

Being a fan of Android and Microsoft for years... I truelly hope that Google would discuss about changing from Java to C#... They don't have to change to c#, but this would be a win for both of them (Microsoft and Google) and a huge loss for Oracle/Apple.

It's called Xamarin.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#248

Post by agentultra »

skittles wrote: post #219

This is going to be a huge boost to ClojureCLR, IronPython, and F#. I think F# especially is going to take off in popularity now that its best VM target is going to run on Linux and Mac.

I hope so. F# is a really nice language. Microsoft Research is an amazing lab with some very bright minds working there.

It'd be nice to be able to use some of the fruits of their labor without having a steep entry fee to evaluate it.

Thanks MS, this is a good move.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#249

Post by moonchrome »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #181
moonchrome wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly depends on what the deal between Xamarin and MS is. For example they could work out a deal with Xamarin where they would provide free access under same terms as Visual Studio community (the >5 people) and Microsoft could pay them more than enough to cover their loss while promoting their development stack.

Doesn't Xamarin have a load of other stuff around testing and the like? It could just mean a move away from Xamarin as a core development tool into producing things which support development on these platforms.

I highly doubt Microsoft will release and support Linux/OSX/iOS/Android API bindings.

What will likely happen is Microsoft will :

* open source the core libs

* open source the JIT

* make sure it works on all platforms

* open source the ASP.NET and port it to Linux/Mac so they can separate Azure from being a Windows only cloud service

Xamarin then packages these in to Mono and Xamarin.iOS/Android providing a layer on top of MS core stuff. Microsoft will then be able to sell .NET as a truly cross-platform solution and make VS/Azure more popular where it's probably losing to other OSS ATM.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#250

Post by [deleted] »

billyhoffman wrote: post #136
Someone1234 wrote: post #32

It will be interesting to see how this will work in practice. C# will port over just fine. But the .Net libraries? System.Windows has little to nothing in it, and right now using things like System.IO.* on Linux and Mac is just asking for trouble. What are they going to do, hack in System.IO.* Linux support after the fact? Or just add Linux.IO.* which is even more of a hack. In either case you're going to get very me…

"What are they going to do, hack in System.IO" System.IO works very well on Linux/Mac right now. It was one of the first things implemented by the Mono team. Having ported numerous .NET applications, all of which do fair heavily file I/O (the most common use case for System.IO), the main sticking point has been code that deals with filenames and paths. As in "/home/billy" vs "c:\Users\Billy". A hour or so of cleaning…

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