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Microsoft Launches Its .NET Distribution for Linux and Mac

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Re: Microsoft Launches Its .NET Distribution for Linux and Mac

#71

So, what exactly is .NET? As a non-corporate Mac user, I'd like to know.

Think of it as like the Java runtime environment, but not terrible. You have two main pieces: the Common Language Runtime, which is the virtual machine (like the JVM) that executes the code. Then you have the library it comes with, which is fairly large compared to most languages. edit: Added more context

How does it compare to Swift/Xcode/Mac Native?

Re: Microsoft Launches Its .NET Distribution for Linux and Mac

#73
post #34
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, as long as they have copyright assignment from contributors, they could just as well do that with a GPL software.

IANAL, but that would essentially require contributors to sign a waiver correct? That seems like a fairly large barrier compared to just being able to take contributors code and incorporate it into a closed project, no?

If it's GPL or MIT, then it can be forked, and the original owner can't force anyone to sign a waiver. The waiver idea only works as long as the original owner maintains control of the de facto distribution of a project.

Re: Microsoft Launches Its .NET Distribution for Linux and Mac

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is like the Java runtime, but started afresh with all of Java's learned lessons taken into account (although Java with 7 and 8 in particular is catching up). Up until now however it has only ran on Windows which was its biggest "downside" Vs. Java which runs on many platforms.

So, why would a Mac user develop in it, instead of in a Windows (virtual) machine? How would .NET compare to Apple's native environment? I guess the whole point is to write cross-platform code, but is the .NET environment that much better than Swift/Xcode? I mean, Java never really caught on with the Mac user base.

For mac users, it's probably going to used for web development rather than native apps.

Although there are some good bindings to cocoa to do so.

Re: Microsoft Launches Its .NET Distribution for Linux and Mac

#75

So, what exactly is .NET? As a non-corporate Mac user, I'd like to know.

Think of it as like the Java runtime environment, but not terrible. You have two main pieces: the Common Language Runtime, which is the virtual machine (like the JVM) that executes the code. Then you have the library it comes with, which is fairly large compared to most languages. edit: Added more context

One of the interesting things I'm waiting to see is if .NET gets good enough to become the "main" platform for compile to VM languages like Clojure. It can already compile to .NET, but it's significantly less used than the JVM version, despite .NET generally being easier to target.

Re: Microsoft Launches Its .NET Distribution for Linux and Mac

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it as like the Java runtime environment, but not terrible. You have two main pieces: the Common Language Runtime, which is the virtual machine (like the JVM) that executes the code. Then you have the library it comes with, which is fairly large compared to most languages. edit: Added more context

How does it compare to Swift/Xcode/Mac Native?

You've listed three very different things there.

For Swift, compare it to C# (depends on personal preference)

For XCode, compare it to Visual Studio (IMO, VS is light years ahead)

For Mac Native, compare to the .NET runtime (IMO .NET is better but it's not as clear cut)

Re: Microsoft Launches Its .NET Distribution for Linux and Mac

#77
post #28

F# is a real breath of fresh air in comparison to something like Scala. It's direct ML heritage really shows, also just diving in with an IDE (like Xamarin, or I suppose Visual Studio) is super easy. I see it as the future of pop-functional programming. For example look at the way it handles type inference w/ JSON parsing. Compare that to what you have to do to parse JSON in Scala. It's subtle, but a major usability…

You would think something like OCaml would fill in that niche with its wider availability.

There's a very cool implementation of (multi-threaded!) OCaml for the JVM: http://www.ocamljava.org/

Re: Microsoft Launches Its .NET Distribution for Linux and Mac

#78

So, what exactly is .NET? As a non-corporate Mac user, I'd like to know.

It is like the Java runtime, but started afresh with all of Java's learned lessons taken into account (although Java with 7 and 8 in particular is catching up). Up until now however it has only ran on Windows which was its biggest "downside" Vs. Java which runs on many platforms.

The JVM is much more sophisticated than the CLR. Its GCs and JIT are many, many years ahead of the CLR's.

Re: Microsoft Launches Its .NET Distribution for Linux and Mac

#80
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr MIT license

How about patent use grants, hmm? If I remember correctly, Microsoft is making a lot of money off of Android by licensing patents.

The MIT License arguably protects against patent litigation (in contrast to BSD).

People who have an issue with the MIT License (on the patent issue) fall into one of two categories:

a) People who've put it in the same category with BSD in their heads at some point, associating with it the same shared caveat about patents, and

b) People who understand the distinction between the two but are unsatisfied with how terse it is (especially in contrast to e.g., Apache 2.0). This isn't helped by the fact that the MIT License doesn't actually use the word "patent", and the closest it gets to saying "irrevocable" is "without restriction"/"without limitation".

In any case, Microsoft also included a custom patent grant at the time they announced the CLR's availability on GitHub and its new, more agreeable license terms. (Unfortunately it doesn't include the word "irrevocable", either.)

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