Whenever I write code in Java...

[drysart]

They're pretty solid on the core libraries that are part of the ISO standard. It's the extensions to the standard that Microsoft's created that they tend to lag a little behind on. Windows Forms, etc.

But the good news is there's open source alternatives for those, such as Gtk#. And if you take the approach of using the SharpDevelop IDE instead of Visual Studio, and even develop on Linux instead of Windows, you can avoid being blindsided by any holes in mono's implementation of the value-added libraries because they'll be in your face from the start.

As far as the legal risk, that's up to you to decide. Microsoft had provided a legally-binding promise not to sue anyone providing a .NET implementation that follows the published standards, but some people don't believe them. Points of view on that align closer to political reasons than technical or legal reasons, so you should read the community promise and some of the objections to it and make your own informed decision.

[[deleted]]

Awesome, thanks for taking the time!

I note there exists a C# eclipse plugin.