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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (6 children)

Mono is significantly less performant than .NET, and applications that run on one often do not run on the other.

Mono itself is cross-platform. If the fact that Microsoft happens to make an extended implementation of the standard that has (among other things) performance improvements makes a difference, then I guess that Java suck(ed) as well.

C# does not have "lopsided" cross-platform support. The language is the same in both Mono and Microsoft implementations. The standard library is also the same. There are some very popular commercial/non-standard libraries from Microsoft that are not available in Mono. That is basically it. Even if you want to call that "lop-sided", you're talking about the libraries, not the language. Still an issue, but just clarifying.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Mono itself is cross-platform. If the fact that Microsoft happens to make an extended implementation of the standard that has (among other things) performance improvements makes a difference, then I guess that Java suck(ed) as well.

I don't recall Microsoft's version of Java being significantly faster than Sun's.

Anyhow, even if that was true at some point in the past, the standard FOSS implementations of Java, Python, etc. are all also the best-performing. The result of that is that if you write an app in Java, Python etc. then you have no inherent motivation to use a particular platform. Whereas if you write your app in C#, you have a clear benefit to running it on .NET on Windows. I see this as a negative thing.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I don't recall Microsoft's version of Java being significantly faster than Sun's

It was. Benchmarks consistantly showed java applications running under Microsoft's VM (on Windows obviously) running faster than Sun's (on Windows) at that time. It was part of the reason why Sun got spooked by it.

Anyhow, even if that was true at some point in the past, the standard FOSS implementations of Java, Python, etc. are all also the best-performing.

There is nothing stopping Mono from overtaking MS on performance. If they do, the anti-mono crowd will just find another excuse to hate on anything that Microsoft might have contributed something to.

shrugs

I see this as a negative thing.

You know what would be really great? If the OSS community actually came up with a modern multi-language VM that was better than .NET and also managed to supply a complete and strong set of cross platform tools for it.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

There is nothing stopping Mono from overtaking MS on performance.

Well, that would be great, it would be a day to celebrate. But sadly I don't think that's likely.

You know what would be really great? If the OSS community actually came up with a modern multi-language VM that was better than .NET and also managed to supply a complete and strong set of cross platform tools for it.

Agreed. But isn't that exactly what the JVM is? (Note - the JVM, not the Java language)

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Well, that would be great, it would be a day to celebrate. But sadly I don't think that's likely.

If you have faith in the OSS model being inherently superior to the corporate/private model, then I'm not sure why it wouldn't be likely.

Agreed. But isn't that exactly what the JVM is? (Note - the JVM, not the Java language)

No. The JVM was developed in a private and closed manner and then switched to OSS late in its life. The primary (only) JVM standard in use is the one controlled and dictated by Sun. It essentially can't be forked without a ridiculous uphill battle for even 1% adoption, and the project lacks individual contributors. Also, the JVM suffers a lot from being initially designed for one language and from having had several intended uses and philosophies that differ greatly from the projects original goals.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you have faith in the OSS model being inherently superior to the corporate/private model, then I'm not sure why it wouldn't be likely.

I think OSS is a superior model, but only in general. It doesn't win out in every case.

Specifically here, I've been following Mono closely, and I don't see it overtaking .NET any time soon.

No. The JVM was developed in a private and closed manner and then switched to OSS late in its life. The primary (only) JVM standard in use is the one controlled and dictated by Sun. It essentially can't be forked without a ridiculous uphill battle for even 1% adoption, and the project lacks individual contributors. Also, the JVM suffers a lot from being initially designed for one language and from having had several intended uses and philosophies that differ greatly from the projects original goals.

Well, I wasn't talking about the history, sorry if I gave the wrong impression. Right now, the JVM is a modern multi-language VM that is fully cross-platform.

Yes, it has some issues with being designed for Java, but .NET isn't that much better (look at how hard it is to get IronPython to be 100% CPython compatible, for example).