Larry O'Brien wrote: >I am the primary author of _Thinking in C#_ ...
>... Another thing I'd like to do in the book is present a clear >picture of the boundaries between what is Microsoft's protected IP >and what is open; as I understand it, this is >the ECMA spec. True? Maybe someone can answer it better... >And is there anywhere a clear diagram of what >elements are within the spec and which outside? Two comments: 1 - Mono goes beyond ECMA, emulating (maybe its better to say that Mono will emulate) most of .NET Framework Class Library. Rotor mainly stops at what ECMA specifies, but it cannot be used to develop software, it�s restricted to learning uses, by the Shared Source License. 2 - The ECMA spec has a LARGE xml file documenting every class and method in it, but it�s hard to piece a boundary line from that hierarchical data. >Is it the case that, for instance with System.Runtime.Interopservices >that some classes might be inside the spec and some outside, or are >the standards fairly well delineated by namespace boundaries? The ECMA Standard is a subset of what is in .NET (at this point anyway, because it can evolve to something that Microsoft doesn�t want to implement/comply), and MOSTLY is namespace based, but NOT always. Just an example: ADO.NET (System.Data Assembly) adds a Dataset-to-XML converter inside the System.Xml namespace. The more correct base for defining boundaries is the assembly. Think of namespaces as a "logical" grouping of classes (it�s stated purpose is to avoid name collisions), and assemblies as a "physical" grouping of classes. Still, some of the mscorlib classes aren�t in the ECMA spec... No perfect world... >Cheers, >Larry O'Brien >http://www.thinkingin.net Happy writing, Rafael Teixeira Brazilian Developer _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx _______________________________________________ Mono-list maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
