On his blog, Mike Harsh of Microsoft writes that the support of WPF/E on the Macintosh platform will not be limited to a JavaScript engine: “WPF/E supports programmability through JavaScript for tight browser integration. The WPF/E package also contains a small, cross platform subset of the CLR and .NET Framework that can run C# or VB.NET code. Yes, we are bringing C# programming to the Mac.”
The C# .NET VB mess MS created comes to the Mac. OMG…!
Hell just keeps getting colder and colder these days!
I do realize that it’s a “subset” or whatever, but perhaps this is just the beginning of a full port? Regardless, this is awesome.
Why do they come up with this now?!
We got mono on the mac, and imagine it’s oss – you can tune it what you want it too.
The problem with Mono is MS. I will never touch Mono because MS could, if they wanted, stop the project cold. I have said this before, while Mono may be a cool language/framework most people see the specter of MS overshadowing it. So they say “Mono is cool, but…” and that is where they will stand because the legal issues are not at all clear.
Doubtful. I’d still rather work in Python.
Here here!
Being a recent convert to Python (last May, after 6 years of working with Perl), I find it a much better language to develop complex applications with.
I have toyed around in C# in Mono and .NET, and I still do a ton of coding in Java and C, but I get a lot of simple enjoyment out of working in Python.
And yet Redhat, with their history of extreme caution, has decided that mono will ship on Fedora.
As referenced on another article on osnews, this is why: http://gregdek.livejournal.com/4008.html
I doubt very much this will change your mind of course.
I think Redhat’s hand was being forced by the extent to which all new applications on the Gnome desktop (their default) were being written in C#. Beagle, F-Spot, Muine, these are all prestige apps, and they’re all Mono only.
I very much think they would have been happier had people used Java-GTK, but all the various bits (Java 5’s new features, GCJ’s support of it, GCJ’s readiness in general) just didn’t come together in time for them.
I wonder why i am getting voted down for my comment.
I don’t understand why they don’t support mono instead – it’s a good base to use. It contains their .NET technology – why start from scratch ( is’nt that lame ?).
Edited 2006-03-24 08:53
Well, for one, the subject “Lamers”, seems like flamebait.
Second, Microsoft has their own C# codebase that’s ready to go, it would be a whole lot easier for them to make it cross platform than support two completely separate implementations, of which one was incomplete. Not to mention the fact that they don’t want to be seen supporting an external project, nor do they want to cause any fuss by appearing to interfere in an external project. Thus your comment didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Then there’s the fact that it seems unnecessary to criticise someone for trying something even if, at first glance, it appears redundant (though in this case, their approach is clearly better).
Okay, I am actually curious to see if the whole shebang comes across. That would actually be cool I think.
shebang? I’m sorry, but it is C# not #!
😀
I wish they would be more specific.
Are they porting “C# / VB.NET” or are they porting the CLR bits needed to run /ANY/ CLS compliant language like Nemerle or Boo or IronPython?
yeah it is a little vague on that part, the question is will the same piece of c# code work in mac the way it works in windows
yeah it is a little vague on that part, the question is will the same piece of c# code work in mac the way it works in windows
I would say that the WPF layer which they’ll make available, will be only enough to get Winforms up and running, and possibly some other features, but one shouldn’t expect the whole WPF to be made available.
I think it is more a ‘your application will work, but if you want those extra features, it’ll be stuck in Windows land’ – it’ll be up to the software companies as to whether they, when they write the application, to embrace those ‘extras, but not available for Mac’ or decide to create their own technologies so that it can work on both platforms.
First off, this has nothing to do with WinForms. WPF/E is meant to be hosting container agnostic. All the demos have been in a browser, but there’s nothing preventing someone from writing a wrapper around it and using it for non-browser based applications.
WPF/E is a subset of WPF, but the WPF/E experience will be consistent across all platforms that it’s ported to. What this means is that someone can write a WPF/E app on a Mac and it’ll look the same on IE in Windows and vice versa. What MS has done is port a “mini” CLR to the different platforms.
I know you’re not a big MS fan, but this is actually pretty good news for all web developers regardless of what platform we use to write applications, because we can be guaranteed consistency across platforms.
See my link above for more information about how the plug-in works, and what feature-set it will support.
I know you’re not a big MS fan, but this is actually pretty good news for all web developers regardless of what platform we use to write applications, because we can be guaranteed consistency across platforms.
Honey, I use Windows XP, Office 2003, got a MSN Messenger contact, and heck, my main browser is IE7 – yeah, sure I really hate Microsoft 😉
I didn’t have a look at the original (I have now since), but having got a better understand; it looks like a good thing Microsoft is onto – we’ve got a Mac plugin; given Microsofts relationship with SUN, will we see a Solaris/Firefox one soon?
Heh, coulda sworn we’ve bantered before over stuff like this. Hard to keep up w/ who’s who…m’bad. Sounds like my rig (sans IE7 as my main browser).
I’m assuming we’ll eventually get one for all major browsers/platforms, fingers are crossed on this one b/c yes it is a pretty good thing they are onto.
Heh, coulda sworn we’ve bantered before over stuff like this. Hard to keep up w/ who’s who…m’bad. Sounds like my rig (sans IE7 as my main browser).
Definately wouldn’t be me, I’m the only regularly getting bashed for not being overly optimistic about Linux, and how I am apparently ‘sucked into Microsofts hype’.
For me, it isn’t about being a fanboy, its about acknowledging when something does a good job – for me, I have a certain set of applications I like, I don’t want to compromise or change, there fore, the two choices I have are Windows and MacOS X – unfortunately for a large number of Linux users out there, they just don’t get that.
I’m assuming we’ll eventually get one for all major browsers/platforms, fingers are crossed on this one b/c yes it is a pretty good thing they are onto.
I think the thing is this; Microsoft is realising this; they can keep trying to hope that Windows Vista will sell at an accelerated rate (which is highly unlikely to actually occur) OR they can simply just push it like usual, let the people gradually migrate, and instead, push hard in the big areas where money is made – on the server side of the equation.
Jon Galloway (who attended MIX06) has a great post about just that: http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2006/03/23/440933.aspx
Incredibly useful!
Mod point for you.
>The problem with Mono is MS. I will never touch Mono
>because MS could, if they wanted, stop the project cold.
Is anyone asking you to use Mono?
There are, I believe, other computer languages that you could use to develop applications. Java perhaps, it will be less psychologically stressful.
or TCL/XOTCL
Tcl + XOTcl is very cool.
Yes, it’s evident just how good C# is when you see all the fanboys having to assert their love for python.
Python, while interesting…will never be nothing more than a mild curiosity.
If you want to waste your time using Python, have fun. Those of us with real work to do will carry on with Java or C# and their respective frameworks.
What really should be discussed on this thread is the significance of MS spreading a variant of .net beyond Windows…which is something to be celebrated because .net is a very clever framework. The bandwidth of this thread should not be wasted by people’s petty language preferences and their anti-MS crusades.
While I disagree with your python is only for fanboys claim (because there are many very useful tools in linux written in it), I do agree about C# and Java (though I would add C to that list). Personally, I like C# much more than I like Java however I don’t have any Windows boxes (just OS X systems and an OpenBSD server).
As I’ve said before, Microsoft is doing some pretty neat stuff with .NET, Ajax, etc. Thumbs up to them on the non OS stuff
“Python, while interesting…will never be nothing more than a mild curiosity. ”
Do you do programming for fun or just as a career? If so, have you tried Python for a personal project (as opposed to simply printing the values 1 thru 100 via the interactive interpreter)?
“Those of us with real work to do will carry on with Java or C# and their respective frameworks.”
I’m curious what your definition of ‘real work’ is. Do you mean ‘enterprise systems’? I work all day on my company’s ‘enterprise systems’ and its almost pure python (we have a little java too, not because its something python can’t do, but for presumably historical reasons), postgresql and linux.
In any event, this article is about GUI tools, XAML, etc, which is better than traditional web programming, and definitely better than old-style COM and Win32 GUI programming, but it’s still light years behind Cocoa and Apple’s GUI RAD tools.
The *advantage* here, I presume, is that I suppose you can download and run these via a web browser. However, I have no real interest other than mild curiosity for running programs in a browser. For real programs, I want a unified, polished look and feel and a snappy UI.
Yeah, ’cause NASA, Google, the New York Stock Exchange, Industrial Light and Magic, an similar are *such* a bunch of clueless fanboys…
Educate yourself (or quit trolling around)
http://www.python.org/about/quotes/
http://www.python.org/about/success/
I’ve developed applications with both Cocoa and C#, and though C# is more platform indepedent, Cocoa is GREAT. It’s very robust (it’s been improved since the early 90’s).
I think MSFT is desparate to get people using C#. I think this is a move to try to suck people back from Java and Cocoa. Heh.
Microsoft wants to dent Flash with its platform, and that’s best done if it’s more ubiquitous so that developers are less inclined to feel inklings of shame that their web content only runs on Windows. Microsoft probably doesn’t give two flying monkey butts about Cocoa.
“Microsoft probably doesn’t give two flying monkey butts about Cocoa.”
Yea, they are pretty clueless. I think they still think LINUX is their chief threat.
I wonder if they will bring back IE to the mac and give Apple some more competition. I luv Safari, but sometimes I do miss IE.
“but sometimes I do miss IE.”
What on Earth for? IE has one of the worst rendering engines ever…particularly on a Mac. I’m geniunely curious as to what it is you miss about IE. I do miss the bookmark organizing and sorting functions…but that is it. Not nearly enough for me to give up proper rendering, tabs, or a multitude of other features.
WPF/E has nothing to do with programming languages. You can write your WPF/E app in C# on the server, and it delivers XAML to the browser. Want to write a WPF/E app on a Mac? Use a text editor and code up the XAML/Javascript that way (and I bet someone will write a WPF/E IDE for other platforms). Same for any OS. So long as that browser has the WPF/E plug-in installed, rendering will be consistent regardless of the browser/OS/etc.
<insert programming language here> has nothing to worry about. Adobe has the most to lose here as this will be more a competitor to Flash than anything else as it will A) offer the same rich content experience, B) it’s free, C) content will be spiderable by search engines (it’s all text based) and D) (to quote the link I listed in a previous comment):
“The video support is interesting – the media layer apparently has a custom video stack supplied by the Windows Media team. It looked like it only supports Windows Media, but doesn’t require that the player be installed since it runs its own video rendering stack.”
I would be more than happy to rid my machine of Flash forever.
if it is spiderable, then it can be read and dealt with by screen readers (which is a huge issue with flash)
MS might want to open it all the way and make it a W3C standard.
An attempt at WPF to supplant HTML and other standards for web development. Expect more such attempts – consistently.
Oh, and I don’t know why people are talking about Mono. That has nothing to do with this.
I wonder if it’s MS’s secret plane to support itself and apple to squash other OS’s.
The only real competitor Microsoft has to their WPF/E is Adobe’s Flex 2 framework. Both are in beta, and the race is extremely close.
Microsoft is going to do everything in its power to make sure WPF/E is as ubiquitous as possible (including making sure it’s available on Linux), because to not do so would yield the future of the desktop to Adobe.
If someone has dreams of an open source framework for UI, it’s a little late but now would be the time to pursue its development.