1,091 karma · joined January 6, 2011
PCL's are coming. An upcoming Xamarin Studio 4.0.1 will improve PCL support even more - as in, it'll work on Mac, but it won't build true-PCL libraries (it'll link with the Xamarin.iOS or Xamarin.Android BCLs instead of with the true PCL assemblies).
This blog post by Stuart Lodge links to a custom build of MonoDevelop 3.1.1 with my PCL patches if you want to try them out: http://slodge.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-patched-monodevelop-for...
For third-party ObjC libraries, a lot of the more popular ones are already bound.
Writing your own C# bindings for ObjC isn't that difficult, but there is a learning curve involved. We're working on making improved tools to automate more of it, though. In the meantime, we've got a guy that is writing the bindings for libraries based on popular demand.
A lot of the bindings can be found here: https://github.com/mono/monotouch-bindings
Visual Studio basically just talks to MonoTouch on a Mac to do the final build steps, to run the Simulator, etc.
You can still use all of Apple's APIs and bindings for third-party Objective-C libraries.
For Xamarin Studio (the product I work on), I often provide bug reporters with the latest internal build with my patch for their bug no matter what subscription they have (at least for the bigger issues). It's not quite the same thing, but I suspect that'd be good enough for most people until the next official point-release.
You see, once you have owned a patent, no one can use that particular patent against you. Ever.
So Firefox is safe, at least from those patents.
Bug reports also help!
In the meantime, we're working hard to constantly be improving Mono, but the best way to improve free/open source software is to get involved.
Sure, not all Android devices require jail breaking, but some do.
Why hasn't Google learned this from their competitors yet?
I just got Android 2.3 for my Samsung Galaxy S and don't expect to EVER see 4.0 on this phone, even though it's only 18 months old and no doubt plenty powerful enough to run it.
If I had gone with an iPhone4, I'd have iOS 5.1 right now. I wouldn't have to wait 9-12 months after release to get it.
This is a HUGE weakness of Android devices. HUGE.
No, Google is not entirely to blame, but they don't seem to even be trying to fix it. They seem to be perfectly fine with this gaping flaw.
I would say that Xenocode's failure wasn't so much that no one found .NET w/o a CLR useful, it was that they likely only supported Windows.
Oh well, Xenocode's loss is our gain :-)
This claim is completely fictitious.
We started an effort a few years ago to migrate MonoDevelop code to LGPL and MIT/X11 (not BSD) from GPL. Our reason for doing so was to make it possible for third parties to write extensions (addins) to MonoDevelop and license it under whatever license they wanted, i.e. we did not want to force them to have to develop their addins and license them under GPL if they didn't want to.
It was not some big conspiracy to prepare for some Microsoft takeover or anything.
That said, the code donated by Microsoft has been under Apache2 which does provide patent protection, just like GPLv3.
Not that I want to defend Diablo-D3 (he's a troll), I do want to make a few slight corrections to your comment.
1. You are correct in that Microsoft's .NET VM performs better than Mono overall (at least in the general case), but Mono does perform better than .NET in some cases.
Unfortunately I don't have a list of the areas where Mono outperforms .NET handy, so I can't list them here. Perhaps one of the other Mono devs can follow up and provide details. Most likely SIMD would be on the list.
Whether Microsoft would be interested in taking Mono's implementation for these areas or not for their own VM is questionable. Likely not, as it would likely not be easily adaptable to their implementation anyway.
2. SGen is actually stable these days. It is used in Mono4Android and we are working on moving MonoTouch over to SGen as well.
Moonlight was also being moved to SGen (it started out using Boehm because that was the default GC when the project was started) when the Novell layoffs came along.
As responsible developers, we have been taking our time moving to SGen as the default GC because we don't want the move to break any existing apps if we can avoid it. As with all new things, there are still likely to be bugs here and there, but overall we feel that it is ready for use and we've been eating our own dog food.
3. As was mentioned in another comment already, Microsoft's AOT isn't quite the same as Mono's AOT which allows generation of binaries that do not require an external CLR to run.
http://spruce.sourceforge.net/gmime/
It's a high-level library (unlike most other MIME libraries) which makes constructing and parsing MIME trivial.
Are you sure of that? I can't imagine it's true, or there would be a hell of a lot more sales of it than there are...
Very few people actually run Linux on their desktops. If you are one of those people, then yes, I can see this being an advantage. Otherwise... not so much.
I'm a Linux guy and when I had an iPhone, I used to just reboot to my Windows partition to sync my phone. I'd do it ~once per week or so (to sync up with the latest podcasts).
> Ability to easily copy files on and off the phone.
To be honest, I have found this to be more problematic on Android. iTunes synced my music/photos/etc and it Just Worked (tm).
On my Android phone, when I rsync my music/photos/etc from my Linux partition to my phone's SD card, it clobbers everything due to the FS being FAT32 (case insensitive). It's a nightmare to keep things in sync and it takes longer.
> Ability to sync podcasts directly on the phone, without having to connect to a computer with iTunes (not used an iPhone for a while, they might have finally fixed this).
Yes, iPhone has this now. It can both sync with your desktop wirelessly and download the latest podcasts via the iTunes app on your phone if you aren't anywhere near your desktop w/ iTunes.
> Ability to run software Apple doesn't like (emulators).
Jailbreak? I mean, ya gotta do that with Android too...
> We haven't really seen the AI yet, I remain to be convinced, and I don't care about the camera.
I'm skeptical as well, but if it works anywhere near as well as advertised, it will be awesome.
Packing more pixels into such a tiny sensor isn't really going to improve the quality of the photos. However, more sensitivity might...
From what I understand, they've done both... so maybe it'll help or maybe it won't.
The HDR photography that iPhone 4 supported was awesome and makes me regret getting a Samsung Galaxy S which, quite frankly, sucks hardcore in every way.
But I'm a Linux guy so I got an Android... won't be making that mistake again :-\
> Also, you mention price point. The iPhone (particularly the 4S) is about the most expensive phone around at the moment. In general of course the most expensive phone with have the fastest processor, that's hardly suprising.
Equivalent Android's aren't typically much (if at all) cheaper, though (if you buy them outright, at least). Of course, the carriers do seem to subsidize Android phones a lot more than iPhones (which is how you can get most Android phones for cheap-cheap with a 2 year contract).
Are you KIDDING ME!?!?
I grew up in relatively poor small towns most of my life, where the town library was lucky if it had more than a thousand books. Certainly had no internet.
But you know what? I did the same thing rick888 did and I was at that library all the time learning, trying to make myself better.
I took advantage of every opportunity that came my way and I made the most of them.
I didn't have wealthy parents with connections like so many of the rich spoiled brats I see around me bitching about how "lucky" I am to have a good job, or moaning about how there's so many fewer opportunities around them.
Bullshit. Open your eyes. Stop making excuses.
If you want something bad enough, like I (and clearly rick888) did, you will be successful.
Do some people have more opportunities because of who their parents are and/or how much money they make? Sure, but so what? That's life.
I overcame. Rick888 overcame. So can everyone else.
Stop expecting things to just fall in your lap and complaining about how the world "isn't fair" and cast aside your damned entitlement complex.
The world doesn't owe you jack. You have to fight for everything you want. That's the reality, and nothing these protesters do will ever change that.
Seriously.
I'm so sick of people whining about how I'm "so lucky" to have my job. To hear these people talk about how lucky I am is a huge fucking insult because they act is if it just fell in my lap.
It didn't.
I worked my ass off for it, seemingly just like you did. I worked shitty part-time jobs to pay for my own college education. I worked one summer AS A VOLUNTEER (i.e. unpaid) in order to get noticed and it worked, too, because at the end of that summer the company offered me my first decent-paying job in the tech industry (well, it was only $10-something/hr, but it sure beat $5.25 that I was making before).
All this time I was working on contributing to Free Software projects - not just in the hopes of getting noticed, but in order to improve my skills.
After several years of this, I got noticed and got an internship at a start-up and I grabbed that opportunity and I've become very successful because of it.
Saying this was all "luck" is bullshit. I made my own luck. I worked my ass off for everything I got.
I had friends in college that came from much wealthier families than I came from (my family isn't wealthy by any stretch of the imagination) who had plenty of opportunities in their lives but didn't act on them. Where are they now? Probably at those protests whining that they didn't get a job handed to them just for being them.
I'm serious.
Someone I knew in college (studying anthropology iirc) was offered, through a friend, a job interview at the Smithsonian. He didn't take it. Why? Because it wasn't a "sure thing". He was upset that he'd actually have to (heaven forbid) interview.
Where's he now? Living with his parents because he hasn't been able to get a job in the past 8 years.
He had better opportunities than I did, but I made more out of mine than he did.
He's one of the people who tell me how "lucky" I am that I have such a good job.
Makes me sick.