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- jeffyjones, on 10/10/2007, -20/+142I suspect this will never make the Digg front page, but it's a serious kick in the nuts to critics of this platform.
Microsoft is so full of crap in most areas, but the .NET platform folks absolutely get it. - superyounan1, on 10/12/2007, -6/+60.NET is one the best products Microsoft makes today in my opinion, I support whatever they do to make it more pervasive.
I did a couple graduate level projects using C#, it was such a pleasure - melonhedd, on 10/10/2007, -11/+65Awesome
- danielgary, on 10/12/2007, -8/+57This is great news. I realize its just shared source, but its still a huge step in the right direction for Microsoft.
- cyrix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+41I actually love using the .NET platform to be honest. I've coded in a few different languages, but to be honest using VB.NET was the most fun. It was so easy to crank out a program in a matter of an hour or two. It's not just the ease of using it that drew me to it, it was also the widely available resources for it. You can bury me all you want for liking it, but it's the most fun I've ever had programming.
I'd compare it to being a construction worker, then going home to your kids and building a house out of legos. - pantuky, on 10/10/2007, -5/+29Truly stunning turn of events. We could get some notion of this stuff from .NET Reflector, but the original source with comments is so much better. I want to know what sort of impact this might have on Mono? Miguel and the Boyz are probably flipping out right now. Same with the SharpDeveloper guys. This has to make it so much easier to know what the hell you have to do maintain cross-compatibility.
- dalaeth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24Not to mention being able to debug the Framework! I can't tell you how many times I've wondered exactly how some obscure piece of the Framework worked only to find that there's nothing written about it aside from a very brief stub in the MSDN docs. Now I'll be able to follow the code all the way through. I'm stoked.
- dalaeth, on 10/10/2007, -5/+24It may not be truly open source, but hopefully it will provide a general idea as to how certain pieces of the fremework work allowing others, like the Mono Project to make sure that they are able to duplicate the functionality.
- brianjlowry, on 10/14/2007, -6/+21I've been trying to think of a reply to this article, but you nailed it and took the words out of my mouth.
- iffypop, on 10/10/2007, -2/+17Yeah, C is great when i've got 3 years to build my software.
- adolfojp, on 10/10/2007, -1/+16Some time ago I read an interview where Miguel said that the Mono team was discouraged from reading Microsoft's Rotor code. He said that this prevented the Mono team from inadvertently copying copyrighted code. I suspect that Mono's stance on using Microsoft's code hasn't changed.
- Jugalator, on 10/14/2007, -3/+18On Slashdot they were whining on this not following a "traditional" open source license, but I think the point isn't to let people *rewrite the framework* and such things, but understand what goes wrong and the underpinnings of .NET. (and besides, I'm not sure I'd at all like people to make custom .NET Frameworks -- an advantage to it is that it's standardized regardless which .NET program source code you get) This is something that would be very useful for us in debugging applications. Sometimes knowing why you got an exception isn't useful enough (especially if it's really sourced somewhere down in the Win32 API), but rather what led up to the exception.
Up until now we only had the Reflector tool (Google for .NET Reflector), but this is of course very nice, going to be well integrated in Visual Studio 2008 and all. - MioTheGreat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+15.NET is a Windows API.
I assume you mean the win32 API, though. But that literally _is_ Windows. They'd have to open source the vast majority of the OS show us win32's implementation. - SirZRX, on 10/10/2007, -5/+19Just wow, old zunes get new features and now this, well done.
- tpink, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14For everyone who thinks this is beneficial to Mono, Miguel himself just said today:
"People that are interested in continuing to contribute to Mono, or that are considering contributing to Mono's open source implementation of those class libraries should not look at this upcoming source code release."[1]
Basically the code is "tainted" as far as Mono is concerned. That said, it's still helpful for regular developers looking to see how it all works.
[1] http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Oct-03.html - Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I agree, if you compare e.g. .NET to MFC, the API's would not even look to be from the same company. :-p
C# is becoming a very nice and advanced language too, I think in no small part thanks to Anders Hejlsberg. (the brain behind the very popular Turbo Pascal back in the days) I'm looking forward to the C# 3.0 with Linq queries and lambda expressions. Here's a good overview interview with examples on Linq, btw: http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=1146 ...
The only nit is that C# isn't officially supported for Linux by MS, but with the Mono project, you can nowadays use that too especially for .NET 1.1 development and soon also for .NET 2.0. I'm looking forward to good .NET 2.0 support in Mono. :) - freebot, on 10/10/2007, -8/+21Too bad the code can't be merged with the Mono project....
- superyounan1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12thats condescending. I've done C,C++, java, lambda calculus, assembly (MIPS), prolog, javascript, php, some shell scripting, other things here and there... oh and C# (and asp.net).
why is it so hard to believe C# is a good language? good is too weak of a word, 'excellent' is more like it. - pumacub, on 10/10/2007, -7/+17Looks like one of the major arguments people had against .NET has gone right out the window.
- crpietschmann, on 10/12/2007, -22/+31This is awesome, but let us not forget that we already have a fully Open Source version of the .NET Framework. It's called Mono and it runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux! http://mono-project.com
- keyme, on 10/10/2007, -4/+13That's truly great. It is a step in the right direction for Microsoft.
- Takalth, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8They're not adding another abstraction layer. They're giving us the code to an abstraction layer they added a few years ago.
- FatShady, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9Yeah. Microsoft never writes any source code.
***** idiot. - HonoredMule, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9This doesn't really have any value to open source in general, but as someone to does a bit of .NET developing, I know it'll be useful. It's more like a documentation improvement than anything else.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8What the hell OS do you use?
- Takalth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Great step. Next up, give us the source code for DirectX and XNA. (probably not, but it would be really nice).
- trogdoor, on 10/10/2007, -4/+11This is not open source, the source is only allowed to be used as a reference.
- PaulOwen, on 10/10/2007, -12/+19Microsoft has seen the chink in Java's armour, and they're taking it. Java has been playing catchup with C# ever since JSDK1.5, and now Microsoft will probably have the last laugh, while Sun languishes still wondering how to make money out of Java.
I can't say whether it's a good or bad thing, but I do know that as a RAD language C# does it better than Java - I'm sorry. I love Java still but it looks like a cranky old aunt next to the C# sassy younger niece. Microsoft still does operating systems badly - witness the pile that Vista is right now. But in the application space, I reckon Visual Studio Express and C# kick ass.
I know that Miguel de Icaza has been keeping himself very busy with mono, and there's still work to be done, but just Imagine Visual Studio, C#/ASP.NET running on Linux? Just imagine. It's a lot closer now. - HalfNakedPappy, on 10/10/2007, -3/+10You understand, however, that it's not open. All you can do is look at it. You can't modify it and you can't redistribute it.
- mucnix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Yeah, Mono doesn't support everything...but it should be able to MUCH easier when this happens...
- JerTheBear, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9In my opinion, the .NET framework is the perfect candidate for open source. Allowing us .NET developers to step through framework code will make us more effective developers, as well as make the .NET Framework a better product. I think of all the times some framework code fired some obscure exception, and I could do little but code around it. Now I can drill down, find the exact source of the problem, and notify MS if it's a framework bug. Guess that's the whole beauty of open source.
- FatShady, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Yeah - studying code really sucks. I hate having to understand what each line of code I write means.
- mikelieman, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7Not really, they just need to properly document the win32 API. You don't need to release windows under any funky license to do it. IIRC, before windows was popular, the entire point of an Operating System was to present that API to applications so that the Applications could get access to the system resources.
- mrmorris, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4"I guess getting Anders working at MS is finally paying off."
You have got to be kidding. Hiring Hejlsberg was the smartest move ever. Sadly for us working in tha Java space, as we could really have used Java to be reformed (as he tried to do a little with J++ but was stopped when Sun cried "It's miiiiiiiine!"). - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Completely different than using GPL code by "accident" and infecting the rest of your code. Correct? I fail to see how this will get anything in "sticky situations". By the miracle of osmosis perhaps?
- spectre_25gt, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I can definitely understand that. Having the code to the Java libraries has helped me quite a bit.
- haydentech, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I read the license, and while IANAL, I didn't see anything that would imply that you couldn't examine the methods and concepts of the source and apply them to your product. The whole point of the license is that you may use this code as a reference. If your product happens to be Mono, the rules aren't different. The license is the shortest license I've ever seen, so there weren't too many places to hide a "gotcha".
- yournamehere, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7you almost had a digg from me but then you blew it with your Vista comment. You obviously haven't used it since the patches in sept.
Vista since those patches kicks ass. - Jugalator, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Oh right.. I haven't even considered the implications for speeding up the Mono development for .NET 2.0 (since .NET 3.5 is a superset of it) and beyond! I mean, it's great by its own merits for app debugging, but that could be great too.
And I've also seen Reflector, but having comments too and "proper" formatting/code (sometimes Reflector butchers it a bit as it disassembles it although it generally does a pretty good job) is a big plus. - Mistuke, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The debugging support is what it's really all about, i have had problems a lot of times with overhead that seem to get generated in microsoft libraries, and this makes it alot easier to resolve them, since i no longer have to make an educated guess but i'd actually KNOW what's where it's going wrong.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4It's called a "reference" license for a reason...
- posure, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Mono is an excellent technology, but last time I checked (admittedly - a while ago), they were still playing catch up on .NET 2.0 and portions of .NET 1.1.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3"Not really, they just need to properly document the win32 API"
Last time I checked it was called the Platform SDK and it took up gigabytes of space on my hard drive. - thushan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Mono will always play catchup to the Microsoft .NET versions, its just the way it will be, but the fact that MSFT *are* openning this up means there could be a good chance that the Mono dev's could use the real source as "inspiration" (something we'd be doing with .NET Reflector otherwise) as I doubt the licensing would allow forking.
Either way, dont diss .NET until you try it. JSP, Servlets, Struts and Java Server Faeces ooops Faces can kiss my ass... - daveisfera, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Even true open source projects don't let people steal their code (unless it's released in the public domain), so what's your point?
- mancat, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4.NET is not an AL to Win32. It's an "installable" API, similar to POSIX and (formerly avaiilable) OS/2 APIs for WinNT. Win32 is one of many possible APIs that can be utilized simultaneously on a Windows machine.
.NET can interoperate with Win32, but it in no way is required to do anything via the Win32 API. - revenz, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5exactly, c# is way easier/quicker to program in, and its not that slow. look at some of the projects like mediaportal/gbpvr, they're written in C# and run amazingly.
sure you probably wouldnt program a state-of-the-art gfx intensive game in C#, but for most programs, C# is perfectly fine (better than fine), c# oh how i love you. - a-bomb, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5A lot of you don't understand the fundamental meaning of open source and confuse it for something called "freedom". Before commenting, take your time and read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-fr ...
- nirav72, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3permissive license??...So that we may have 5 billion types of .net frameworks out there? /sarcasm I don't think their intention was to make it open so developers can add onto the existing framework. They don't want to fragment the framework. It was intended for debugging. Besides..the framework is fine the way it is right now.
- PaulOwen, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5You don't have to go round to three of your friend's houses to fix their OEM installations. Vista has a lot of problems still - far too many for it to be forced upon new PC users.
Don't mistake your luck with Vista so far with Microsoft new-found competence in patch management. -
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