I work for a company that is currently nearing the end of the planning stage on an application written for Microsoft's .NET. I will be the lead developer on the project. We recently decided we would like to have our application run on Linux as well as on MS Windows. I have been tasked with investigating our options and determining the needed design changes that will make cross-platform operation possible before the actual coding begins.
I had thought Mono was the only option for a Linux .NET alternative when I stumbled upon the DotGNU website. So I now need to choose what Linux .NET alternative we will use, and I had a couple of questions. Let me thank you for taking the time to consider them. [1] What advantages does DotGNU offer over Mono? Is there any particular type of application that would be better suited for DotGNU than for Mono, or the other way around? [2] My company would also like to devote some time to the platform we eventually decide to use as our Linux .NET alternative. I am particularly interested in learning how the compilers and virtual machine work. We could initially contribute to some documentation about the internals of the DotGNU architecture, and then move on to assistance with the actual coding. However, most of my coding has been with high-level languages, and I just recently started using the C programming language. I am also a relatively new user of Linux. (I have done some work with parsing, and I am learning about logic circuit design.) Would the developers be willing to answer questions that would come up in our efforts to document some of the DotGNU internal workings? I know some open source projects would rather not have the extra questions. (The Mono developers list has seemed a little slow and light to the responses on some of my companies inquiries. I'm sure there developers are very busy.) [3] What languages are supported on DotGNU? Is it just C# at the current time? Will you be supporting other languages in the future? [4] Can you use the MonoDevelop IDE with DotGNU? If not, is there another DotGNU IDE in the works? Let me say in conclusion that our application will be released under the GPL license on both MS Windows and Linux. We also believe we need to make a contribution back to our platform of choice, even if it is a small one. That would be the main motive for our learning about the platform internals. Scott Huey _______________________________________________ Developers mailing list [email protected] http://dotgnu.org/mailman/listinfo/developers
