community to get involved. Visit the <a href="contributing.html">contributing</a>
page if you'd like to help out.
-Q: What pieces Novell be working on?
+Q: What pieces is Novell working on?
A: We will devote most of our resources to work on the pieces which are
on the critical path to release a development and execution
desktop. System.Windows.Forms is an API defined by Microsoft to
build GUI applications.
- Windows.Forms is currently being implemented on top of a modified
+Q: What are you using to implement Windows.Forms?
+
+A: Windows.Forms is currently being implemented on top of a modified
version of Wine that can be used as a library: WineLib.
+ Essentially Wine is used as a library that happens to implement the
+ "Win32" toolkit and our Windows.Forms becomes a managed layer on
+ top of this toolkit.
+
+ There are several advantages in this approach: we get Wndproc
+ message compatibility for free (Wndproc is an overridable method in
+ the Control class and it is used to perform advanced tricks with
+ the GUI toolkit) as well as allowing third-party controls that are
+ used to P/Invoke into Win32 in the Windows world to work out of the
+ box on Linux/MacOS.
+
Q: Why not implement System.Windows.Forms on top of Gtk# or Qt#?
A: Compatibility.
Q: Do you have an estimate for when Windows.Forms will be released?
-A: The plan currently is aimed at Q3/2004.
+A: The plan currently is aimed at Q4/2004.
Q: Do you have a comparission chart about the various toolkit
Q: What architectures does Mono support?
-A: Mono today ships with a Just-in-Time compiler for x86-based
- systems. It is tested regularly on Linux, FreeBSD and Windows
- (with the XP/NT core).
+A: Mono today ships with a Just-in-Time compiler for x86, PowerPC and
+ SPARC-based systems. It is tested regularly on Linux, FreeBSD and
+ Windows (with the XP/NT core).
There is also an interpreter, which is slower that runs on the
- s390, SPARC and PowerPC architectures.
+ s390, SPARC, HPPA, StrongARM and PowerPC architectures.
Q: Can Mono run on Windows 9x, or ME editions?
will be most familiar with.
<li> A multi-platform runtime engine: both a JIT engine and an
- interpreter exist. The JIT engine runs currently on x86
- systems, while the interpreter works on SPARC, StrongARM,
- s390 and PowerPC systems.
+ interpreter exist. The JIT engine runs currently on x86,
+ PowerPC Sparc and S390 systems, while the interpreter works on
+ x86, SPARC, StrongARM, s390 and PowerPC systems.
- Our new compilation engine is being ported to the PowerPC.
+ The JIT engine is being ported to amd64 systems as of this
+ time.
- <li> Supports Linux, BSD, Windows and Solaris at this point.
+ <li> Supports Linux, BSD, MacOS, Windows and Solaris at this point.
<li> The JIT engine is written using a portable instruction
selector which not only generates good code but
tools, we bug fix problems rapidly, and the system is
overall more robust and tested than if we did not.
+ <li> Our class libraries are licensed under the terms of the MIT
+ X11 license which is a very liberal license as opposed to
+ the GNU GPL with exceptions, this means that Mono can be
+ used in places where the GPL with exceptions is not
+ permissible.
+
+ <li> Mono has a complete Web Services stack: we implement ASP.NET
+ web servers and web clients as well as implementing the
+ Remoting-based SOAP infrastructure.
+
+ <li> Remoting implementation: Mono has a complete remoting
+ infrastructure that is used in our own codebase to provide
+ added functionality and performance to our ASP.NET engine
+ and more.
+
+ <li> Mono has a complete <a href="c-sharp.html">C# 1.0</a>
+ implementation and has been stress tested a lot more than
+ Portable.NET's compiler.
+
+ <li> Mono's C# compiler has strong error handling and has closer
+ adherence to the specification with support for definite
+ assignment (required to generate verifiable IL code) and
+ CLS conformance checking.
+
+ <li> Mono's C# compiler is written in C# which is easier for new
+ developers to come in and improve, fix and tune. The Mono
+ C# compiler in C# is faster than their C-based compiler.
+
+ <li> Preview of C# 2.0: a work in progress for a 2.0
+ implementation of our compiler is available (iterators,
+ generics and anonymous methods are available in our
+ "preview" compiler).
+
+ <li> Mono has a complete Reflection and Reflection.Emit: these
+ are important for advanced applications, compilers and
+ dynamic code generation.
+
+ <li> Mono has a <a href="xml-classes.html">complete managed XML
+ stack</a>: XML, XPath, XML Serializer, XML Schema handling
+ are fully functional, feature complete and tuned for
+ performance.
+
+ <li> Mono has a <a href="crypto.html">complete cryptography stack
+ </a>: we implement the 1.0 and 1.1 APIs as well as using our
+ fully managed stack to implement the SSL/TLS transports.
+
+ <li> <a href="ado-net.html">Extensive database support</a>: Mono
+ ships with database provides for <a
+ href="firebird.html">Firebird</a>, <a href="ibmdb2.html">IBM
+ DB2</a>, <a href="oracle.html">Oracle</a>, <a
+ href="sybase.html">Sybase</a>, Microsoft <a
+ href="tdsclient.html">SQL Server</a>, <a
+ href="sqlite.html">SQL Lite</a>, <a
+ href="mysql.html">MySQL</a>, <a
+ href="postgresql.html">PostgresSQL</A>, <a href="oledb.html">Ole
+ DB</a> and <a href="odbc.html">ODBC</a>.
+
+ <li> Mono includes full LDAP support.
+
<li> We have a great community of developers, without which Mono
would not be possible.
</ul>
3.- Then checkout or update your mcs CVS copy. Then follow
the steps described in mcs/INSTALL.txt.
-Q: Will it be possible to use the CLI features without using byte codes
- or the JIT?
+Q: Will it be possible to use the CLI features without using byte codes or the JIT?
A: Yes. The CLI engine will be made available as a shared library.
The garbage collection engine, the threading abstraction, the
- object system, the dynamic type code system and the JIT will be
+ object system, the dynamic type code system and the JIT are
available for C developers to integrate with their applications if
they wish to do so.
Q: Has anyone succeeded in building a Mac version of the C# environment.
If so can you explain how?
-A: You could try to check with the Darwin people, or the Fink people.
- Mono/C# is self hosting on Linux/PPC which is the hard part, so it
- should be relatively simple to get it to work on MacOS
+A: Yes, Mono works on Linux/PPC and MacOS X (10.2 and 10.3)
<a name="reuse"></a>
** Reusing Existing Code
<a name="gcc"></a>
** Mono and GCC
-Q: Are you working on a GCC front-end to C#? A GCC back-end that will
- generate CIL images?
+Q: Are you working on a GCC front-end to C#?
+
+A: We are not working on a GCC front-end for C#
+
+Q: Will you support C/C++ on the Mono VM?
+
+A:The open64 compiler effort from SGI helps a lot in this direction.
+
+ The Open64 compiler is a modified version of GCC that
+ generates a new intermediate language instead of RTL. This could be
+ the foundation to generate CIL code, and to implement the upcoming
+ Managed extensions to C++ from ECMA.
-A: We would love to see a GCC modification that would generate CIL
- images, but there is nothing at this point.
+ Open64 (and other derivative forks of GCC) split the gcc front-ends
+ from the backends by using the WHIRL intermediate representation.
+ Kris has begun the implementation of a translator from WHIRL to CIL.
+
+ So it will be possible to use the GCC compilers to target the CIL.
+
+Q: What about Managed C++?
+
+A: Once a full translator for WHIRL exists, we are interested in
+ looking at expanding the GCC frontends to include extensions for
+ Managed C++.
Q: What about making a front-end to GCC that takes CIL images and
generates native code?
A: There is no active work on this area, but Mono already provides
pre-compilation services (Ahead-of-Time compilation).
-Q: But would this work around the GPL in the GCC compiler and allow
- people to work on non-free front-ends?
-
-A: People can already do this by targeting the JVM byte codes (there
- are about 130 compilers for various languages that target the JVM).
<a name="performance"></a>
** Performance
many new features, and layers suitable for optimization. It is
relatively easy to add new optimizations to Mono.
- The CIL has some advantages over the Java byte code: it is really
- an intermediate representation and there are a number of
- restrictions on how you can emit CIL code that simplify creating
- better JIT engines.
+ The CIL has some advantages over the Java byte code: The existance
+ of structs in addition to classes helps a lot the performance and
+ minimizes the memory footprint of applications.
+
+ Generics in the CLI world are first-class citizens, they are not
+ just a strong-typing addition to the language. The generic
+ specifications are embedded into the instruction stream, the JIT
+ uses this information to JIT a unique instances of a method that is
+ optimized for the type arguments.
+
+ The CIL is really an intermediate representation and there are a
+ number of restrictions on how you can emit CIL code that simplify
+ creating better JIT engines.
For example, on the CIL, the stack is not really an abstraction
available for the code generator to use at will. Rather, it is a
Microsoft falls under the ECMA/ISO submission. Jim Miller at
Microsoft has made a statement on the patents covering ISO/ECMA,
(he is one of the inventors listed in the patent): <a
- href="https://mailserver.di.unipi.it/pipermail/dotnet-sscli/msg00218.html">here</a>.
+ href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030609164123/http://mailserver.di.unipi.it/pipermail/dotnet-sscli/msg00218.html">here</a>.
Basically a grant is given to anyone who want to implement those
components for free and for any purpose.
Q: Does Mono support generics?.
-A: Mono doesn't support generics currently but a lot of work is being
- done towards it.
+A: Yes, the Mono runtime now supports the new Generics extensions, and
+ there is also support for generics in our new compiler: `gmcs'.
+
+ The Mono C# 1.0 compiler (mcs) will ship with various C# 2.0
+ features, but generics will remain on the separate compiler (gmcs)
+ as this code is not as tested as the main compiler.
<a name="problems"></a>
** Mono Common Problems
projects / mono.git / blobdiff