Mono is an interesting Open Source Project, sponsored by Novell, that "provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix." The most recent version, 1.2.3, adds support for a Visual Basic 8.0 compiler meaning that Visual Basic applications can now be run on the Mac. The Mono project has an active Mac community already, and if you're looking to investigate you might start with this Xcode tutorial. Now, of course, the question of whether it's a good thing that it is easy to compile a VB application for the Mac is something else entirely. Nonetheless, Mono now seems to represent an inexpensive alternative to REALbasic for writing cross-platform applications.[Via MacNN]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-20-2007 @ 8:20PM
brendan said...
would this work with visual basic express? http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/
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2-20-2007 @ 8:33PM
Damien Guard said...
Or just wait for Microsoft's .NET runtime for Mac OS X.
Should be real soon now - check some of the MSDN Channel 9 videos and various .NET blogs for the hints and teases.
[)amien
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2-20-2007 @ 8:37PM
Brent said...
I think I'll stick to Revolution (http://www.runrev.com) for all my Rapid-Development software needs. REALBasic and Visual Basic don't quite cut it when all you're interested in is creating something, not debugging and compiler-fighting.
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2-20-2007 @ 9:00PM
Manuel de la Pena said...
lets face it you are not going to develop using .NET on a Mac or *nix if you can choose to use libs that are in most of the platforms like Qt... This is a great idea for people like me, want to use a mac but hae to develop with c# for some reason. Lets face it monno is an amzing project just like everything that miguel starts (like gnome) Heis one of the best programmers ever!!!
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2-21-2007 @ 7:19AM
Ed said...
Mono on Mac uses X11, and consequently Mono apps on a Mac look like a poor imitation of Windows 95... Try reading http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/02/16/uncle_mac_mono_/
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2-21-2007 @ 8:21AM
Sam said...
I'm one of those heretics that think Apple should dump ObjC at the first opportunity, and C# seems like a pretty compelling opportunity. Development environments are DEFINITELY not one of Apple's strengths, and they should just outsource it. Unfortunately Mono on the Mac requires X Windows-- it doesn't have a native binding for the forms UI. Cocoa# looks interesting, but would be more so if Apple would just adopt it and stop trying to re-invent the wheel with ObjC.
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2-21-2007 @ 8:26AM
Mark said...
Mono's been around for a while, as has the goal of the .NET Framework enabling portable applications that are platform-independent, like the promise of Java. Instead of write once, modify as needed, compile everywhere, it's write once, run anywhere atop the .NET Framework.
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2-21-2007 @ 10:14AM
Jon Hohle said...
looks interesting, but would be more so if Apple would just adopt it and stop trying to re-invent the wheel with ObjC.
Bwa-haha. You do realized that Objective-C has been around for a lot longer than C#... right? Objective-C was written around 1986. It has nearly a 15 year head start on C#.
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2-21-2007 @ 10:55AM
Lerxst said...
It is possible to get decent-looking GUI with Mono on a Mac, just use WxWidgets: http://wxnet.sourceforge.net/screenshots/
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2-21-2007 @ 9:05PM
Sam said...
"Bwa-haha. You do realized that Objective-C has been around for a lot longer than C#... right? Objective-C was written around 1986. It has nearly a 15 year head start on C#."
I am painfully aware every time I try to work with Objective-C of how old and outdated it is. However, Apple apparently wasted quite a bit of money updating it to Objective-C 2.0 recently. That means that their dev environment (XCode) is now almost as good as the industry had years ago for Java or MFC, and their language is almost as good as the folks on Windows and JVM have. "The Mac... almost as good as Windows" just doesn't sit well with me.
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2-21-2007 @ 11:54PM
Dan Oblak - MacBigot.com said...
"I'd thought it was a good idea to let my Mac play with apps written for PCs -- and now it has Mono!"
(Do people still consider what they name their kids these days?)
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2-22-2007 @ 4:21AM
Chrisian Gehrke said...
Oh man this is great news for me.
I just started working for a .net VB house that is a Windows world. I am the only mac users (so far) and they already hate me because I can run both OSX and XP. Now I don't really need to use XP unless I am testing.
This will be great.
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