Now run .NET Framework across multiple OS Platforms
February 9, 2009 .NET, .NET, Alternatives, Microsoft, News, Open Source, Operating Systems, Reviews, Tips & Tricks
I could say it’s been a dream of myself ever since I started coding the .NET Framework 1.0 in 2002. But I never thought it would became a reality given Microsoft’s nature on being the one that rules everyone.
But, the powerful community of enthusiastic Open Source developers and the Industry leader in Linux and Networks, Novell had together made it a reality at last.
I found some months before upon googling that there is an open source implementation of the CLI (Common Language Infrastructure) and the CLR (Common Language Runtime) for the C#.NET language and .NET Framework 2.0 based on Microsoft’s somewhat open source like, Shared Source CLI (Rotor). It was a pleasant surprise and upon digging I found it was really around for a long time. The project is called Mono (spanish for Monkey) and is available at the Official Website here.
The latest version Mono 2.0 is pretty much grown and stable product. It supports both WinForms and Web Programming as in .NET Frameworks and allows your code to run from any latest version of Linux, UNIX (BSD), Mac OS X, and of course, Windows. The WinForms version of the Mono Framework also allows to have GTK# (a C#.NET implementation of the GTK+ – the cross platform windowing toolkit for X Window system along with Qt) as an alternative to have much native support for X Window based systems (UNIX, Linux and Mac).
Currently the Mono 2.0 version support the following languages: C#.NET, Java, Boo, Nemerle, VisualBasic.NET, Python, JavaScript (JScript), Oberon, PHP, Object Pascal, LUA, Cobra and various other third party developed add-ons supporting custom languages. I would say this is WOW!!! I can never thank the Open Source community and Novell more enough for such a great product.
Please go ahead and check it out…
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