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Microsoft .NET Support on Macs?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by MatthewW, May 1, 2007.

  1. MatthewW

    MatthewW

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    Microsoft has announced new info related to Silverlight, some upcoming product to compete with Flash.

    I found this part interesting:

    So they're supporting a .NET-like (or .NET itself?) runtime on Macs now? I can't make heads or tails out of their corpspeak, but more info at:

    http://news.com.com/Microsoft+takes+Silverlight+beyond+Windows/2100-1012_3-6180322.html
    http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=304508 (this probably has clearer info, but I didn't take the time to watch it).

    I wonder how the Mono project will react to this; hopefully it won't take the wind out of their sails. Any other thoughts?
     
    MatthewW, May 1, 2007
    #1

  2. VICTOM

    VICTOM

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    I doubt it will effect mono. The core mono people are dev'ing for Linux. The Mac support is just a very nice side effect for Unity. From what I've heard via mono dev meetings is that they think Unity is a great side effect of their project. Not to mention MS starts crazy side projects all the time which fail.
     
    VICTOM, May 1, 2007
    #2

  3. Aras

    Aras

    Unity Technologies

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    My guess is that MS will provide some sort of "binary installers" for the runtime at best. On a Mac they might not even provide the standalone library, it could be just integrated into Silverlight (meaning that it can't be used by anything else).

    With Mono we can take only the bits that are relevant to us, hence we can cram that into 1.5 megabyte in the web player currently. And we still have the ideas how to reduce that further in the future. A full .NET runtime would be about 20 megabytes.

    ...then it's not clear whether it's a .NET runtime, or .NET Micro runtime. MS has this quite small .NET Micro runtime now that's targeted mostly at embedded devices (with ARM processors etc.).
     
    Aras, May 1, 2007
    #3

  4. podperson

    podperson

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    What's the best place to find (a) documentation on the bits of .NET in Unity? (I *hate* Microsoft's site.) (b) The differences between Unity's scripting language and JavaScript?
     
    podperson, May 1, 2007
    #4

  5. Randy-Edmonds

    Randy-Edmonds

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    Earlier today I watched Ray Ozzie's Keynote at MIX07. It was very informative, there are a lot of good Silverlight demos. Its packed full of cool stuff, like remotely debugging a Sliverlight Mac client from a Windows box.... you got to see it to really appreciate how cool it is.

    The video explains the whole multi platform .NET framework thing. Basically the Silverlight runtime contains a real full blown .NET CLR (common language runtime), which means you can write client side code in C#, VB.net, Ruby.net, whatever you like.... much better than regular client side javascript. And also the Silverlight runtime contains a subset version of the .NET Framework Class Library.


    So yes Silverlight does make .NET cross-platform (windows and mac, no mention of linux). But it is contained within Silverlight runtime and is only a subset of the .Net Framework Class Library. But still it is awesome. I encourage everyone to watch the video....

    http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/webcasts.mspx
     
    Randy-Edmonds, May 1, 2007
    #5

  6. Randy-Edmonds

    Randy-Edmonds

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    I like the Mono online documention:
    http://www.go-mono.com/docs/

    Unity's scripting language is javascript. The differences are not in the language syntax, but in how/what you are programming against. Most people related javascript to web browsers and in that case the javascript is being used to manipulate/interact with the web browser. In Unity the javascript is being used to manipulate/interact with the Unity game engine. Does that make sense?
     
    Randy-Edmonds, May 1, 2007
    #6