Getting Started in Linux for the Experienced .NET Developer (Comments)

Here are my comments on the SYS-CON FRANCE article titled "Getting Started in Linux for the Experienced .NET Developer" (http://fr.sys-con.com/read/143299.htm)

Our company is in the process of porting a large .NET application to OS X and Linux using Mono. I’m constantly impressed with how mature the mono platform is, but as you state there is still some work to be done in the WinForms area. For us, the primary goal is to maintain a core code base which is exactly the same on all platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux) and then to have one or more platform specific assemblies which contain P/Invoke statements, etc. for each disparate OS.

I’m glad to see that the Mono team is building the new WinForms DLL on the System.Drawing namespace. In our application, which is a GUI application, we have implemented all of our own controls (buttons, tabs, grids, etc.) based on the System.Drawing namespace. It’s not as difficult as it may sound and it allows us to deal with cross platform issues directly.

I’m sure I speak for millions of Visual Studio.NET developers when I say that I long for the day when I can compile any purely .NET GUI application within Visual Studio and then simply xcopy it to OS X or Linux and see it run without issue.

If you are a Windows developer and are curious about Linux let me recommend SUSE Linux 10.0. We ALL need to support Novell in any way we can if for no other reason than they started and support the Mono project. Not to mention SUSE Linux 10.0 is arguably the best desktop Linux distribution available.

One thing I can’t understand is why the Apple people have not jumped on the .NET bandwagon. Don’t they realize that 76% (very conservative estimate, e-week) of the world’s developers are Visual Studio developers? Most software companies write there software first for Windows (90% market share) and then worry about OS X and Linux in “the next version”. Don’t you think that if it were a viable option we would release Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux versions all at the same time?

Novell, I love you!

Apple, how about spending some research dollars to support .NET on OS X?