:: Metaj on Mono ::

:: Monday, May 03, 2004 ::

Mono 0.31
The 0.31 release of Mono:: released on 3/18/04, but I haven't had any need of it until now. Actually, I don't really even need it now. I'm going to install it on my dev laptop to try a few things related to my current project.
:: Jay Metaj 4:26 PM [+] ::
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Miguel Sees It
Yesterday I read Miguel de Icaza's blog posting about Microsoft and Defining the Game. In a recent post I said one of the reasons I don't invest much time in Mono is because Microsoft is doing such a great job on all .NET fronts. Call them a monopoly if you want, but the truth is that they are executing very well on their .NET strategies, and have produced a level of momentum that will be difficult for anyone to keep up with. I don't see any for-profit companies that could keep up, and frankly, I just don't believe any OpenSource movement can gain the necessary levels of direction, cooperation, and momentum to compete with, much less inovate beyond Microsoft's .NET tidal wave. That's the way I see it, and I think Miguel's post shows that he sees it, too.
:: Jay Metaj 10:14 AM [+] ::
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It's Been A Long Time...
Since blogged & rolled ;-)

It doesn't seem like it has been almost a year since I updated this blog! Oh well. Here's my status regarding Linux and Mono:

1. I don't use Linux anymore
2. I only use Mono occassionally (and always on Windows)

The reason for #1 is simply that I don't have time to mess around with technologies that aren't taking me anywhere. Granted, there are lots of techies out there making a living with their tux-skills. But, I ain't one of 'em. I have yet to have a customer ask me to do anything Linux related or to express any interest in Linux.

The reason for #2 is that VS and .NET are so damn awesome. Why do I want to mess around with a simple text editor and cmd-line compiler? Actually, I do a ton of stuff via cmd-line, including .NET compilation, but when dev productivity is an issue, I gladly pay the VS tax! CodeSense (or whatever the mkting name is these days), multi-project solutions, Debug Anything (tm) debugging, integrated help, etc. are too compelling.

I still like the Mono concept, and I like NAnt, so I poke around with them every now and then. I keep up with Mono builds, etc. But the question to me is this: Where is Mono going long-term in the land of Novell. I like Ximian better when it was independent. Novell's acquision makes sense from the "How do we push more Suse sales?" standpoint. But, to be honest, I think Mono is going to wither away or, at best, always be in a long-distance catch-up mode with Microsoft.
:: Jay Metaj 6:07 PM [+] ::
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I figured out that I need to use -lib, -target and -reference on the mcs cmd line in order to add to the lib seach path, give the target type ("library" for dll in this case), and to ref the NUnit framework. The current problem is that I can not pass the same params successfully in a NAnt build file. When I try to pass the lib param with a quoted path, it fails.



After poking around in archives and bug lists, I posted a question to nant-users email list. We'll see what comes of that.

:: Jay Metaj 1:56 PM [+] ::
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It's amazing how long it's been since I've blogged here! Fortunately (for this blog anyway), I was laid off in June, so I have some free time.

So here's what I've been doing & what I've accomplished recently (besides starting AltaModaTech.com :-)

I'm using Mono 0.25 on WinXP Pro. I have VS 2003 and I'm working on making cross-compilation easy. So far I have successfully config'd so I can:
* Compile simple apps with MCS
* Use other Mono tools to disassemble, view signatures, etc.
* Use Nant for easing builds
* Build NUnit 2.0 samples with VS 2003 (but not with Mono)

The next step is to get NUnit samples to build with Mono's mcs and run them successfully in NUnit.
:: Jay Metaj 10:14 AM [+] ::
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Installed NAnt & NUnit2 on my WinXP Pro box. NAnt has some nice features, particularly extensibility, but there are a few things I don't like. It isn't clear to me that .build files are truly cross platform. For example, I'd like to have a .build file that uses csc.exe on Windows, but uses mcs with Mono. Admitedly, I don't know everything about NAnt, but using "NAnt cscbuild" vs. "NAnt monobuild" isn't really what I'm looking for. Additionaly, I didn't see any examples or obvious methods for using NAnt for large projects -- super project of projects kind of thing.

NUnit version 2.0 is a simplistic, yet decent test runner. I particularly like the fact that there is a console app; good for scripting tests after builds, etc. It's nice that NUnit integration is built in to NAnt.
:: Jay Metaj 12:33 AM [+] ::
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Continued to bang my head against the "build the kernel yourself" thing. I have been able to make everything, but the bzdisk part didn't succeed, so I wasn't able to make a boot floppy. When I get another machine, I'll set up LILO or GRUB and get rid of the floppy problem.
Kind of cool that you can use xconfig to select a zillion params for what gets compiled into the kernel, but it is way beyond mainstream. Regardless of what others say, I still find Linux to be a hacker's hobby OS. Yes, there are production machines out there, but my wife, kids, mother, non-tech friends, etc. are still far better of on Windows.
BTW, why does everyone think Linux is so stable? In the past week I have had to reboot twice due to UI freezes -- suddenly the UI becomes completely non-responsive. I wait for a few minutes, etc., but finally have to reboot.
:: Jay Metaj 12:46 AM [+] ::
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Kernel compiling. Going to bed and check on it in the morning. Yehaa!
:: Jay Metaj 11:55 PM [+] ::
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Taking a detour tonight on building & patching the kernel. I'll try to patch sources up to 2.4.20, build, and attempt to boot. I boot from floppy (machine has XP, don't want to disrupt my families computer usage, etc) which will be good and bad. It will be good since I can always use my 2.4.18 floppy if this build doesn't work; it's bad since I have to correctly configure the new 2.4.20 floppy.
:: Jay Metaj 11:23 PM [+] ::
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Played around with several issues tonight. The main hang-up at this point is that I can't use NUnit or any of the mono tests.
Can't find any info on compiling NUnit20 on Linux boxes -- makefile refs csc.exe. How are the Mono:: team running the tests?
I'm going back to the beginning an re-doing many things as root. When I compile using my personal account, there are several errors, particularly with stat. Hopefully, rebuilding mono under /usr/src as root will resolve some of these issues.
:: Jay Metaj 12:58 AM [+] ::
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