Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Wed 4th Feb 2004 05:34 UTC
According to statistics, Java continues to have the crown of the most used VM-based platform in the industry. However, Microsoft's C# and .NET gain ground every day. While C# might or might not overcome Java in the following years, the fact remains that more and more programmers want the choice of C# among their developer tools. So, where does this situation leave Apple?
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I can agree with the arguement for .Net as far as ASP .Net for web services, but even in that arena there are plenty of cross platform alternatives. PHP, Java (again) Servlets/JSP, even CGI with Perl scripts.
Because MacOSX is Unix-like it just seems more logical to use software solutions in the realm of Unix. Then again, that doesn't stop *nix developers from creating that bridge between Unix and Windows: Mono is living proof of that, and so are other examples such as the Direct3D to OpenGL wrapper, and the ASP module for Apache (although limited).
Put aside the mentality of a developer, because developers who are fueled with enough enthusiasm can do anything (ReactOS team is recreating Windows as we speak). So lets think like business men and women. Eugenia made an example by saying how hard it was for her to work with Mac web developers simply because they couldn't run ASP scripts. No offense to anyone, and all due respect to Eugenia, if the people she worked with were serious about their project, they'd look for a solution that works best for them. On the flip side, Eugenia could (and probably did) find a work around for the lack of ASP capability. Be it porting the web app into another language or finding an existing package. I don't know all the details involved with that case so I'm not making any assumptions, I just wanted to illustrate a hypothetical situation.
Why do companies have to feel that just because they don't do the newest, hippest "trend", that they are some how behind or obsolete. Do your customers care whether you use ASP with or without .Net? Do they care what server side scripting engine you run your site on? Get the job done however it makes sense to you and easiest for you, that's the bottomline that companies should focus on.
Apple does not need to invest their own man power into .Net. If the community of developers see a need for it, they will port it themselves and it will happen. If Apple later decides "oh Mono is a great idea and should be officially supported on MacOSX" then they'll invest money and time towards it. Just like they did with their Safari web browser. They worked with the KHTML (did I get that right? It's KHTML engine in Safari right?) team to produce "Web Core" for MacOSX which Safari uses and any MacOSX app has access to. In return the KHTML team gets the man hours Apple invested.