Revisting the gui.cs framework

https://tirania.org/blog/archive/2019/Apr-22.html

by atesti • 7 years ago

121 72 7 years ago

mikekchar• 7 years ago

I don't know why, but I find it amusing to see Miguel de Icaza say: " Hopefully I will beat my previous record of two users." It makes me feel a lot better about my catalogue of completely unknown software ;-)

pjmlp4• 7 years ago

Turbo Vision is back! :) (yes I know, old joke)

soapdog• 7 years ago

I still miss it...

copperx• 7 years ago

I do too. It was incredibly amazing (IDEs were built on top of it!) and ncurses falls short as a replacement.

homarp• 7 years ago

http://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Vision :)

cmroanirgo• 7 years ago

Nice. It makes me reminisce about my first accounting package written in Turbo Pascal (which I might add, survived y2k without a line of code being changed).

vaylian8• 7 years ago

I still don't understand what C#/.NET brings to the table that the Linux ecosystem is lacking. All these years it seemed to me that MdI was understanding something that I don't know about. I really appreciate all the efforts that MdI has put into Mono and I appreciate the fact that we have .NET core for Linux but I completely fail to understand what the practical benefits are. C# seems to be a more flexible version of Java that is suffering from feature creep. I have not seen any notable .NET libraries that I want to take advantage of.

Maybe I am too deep in my Linux filter bubble. Can someone give me some examples of where .NET on Linux really shines?

vnorilo• 7 years ago

Not that it would be a game changer, but F# is a pretty nice language. https://fsharp.org/use/linux/

vaylian8• 7 years ago

True. Caml-like languages are nice (hello Rust!). One of the benefits of the CLR is that it can support virtually any programming language that can compile to bytecode. But I do not see that being a major thing. Yes, there are various Iron$language implementations and Clojure is also available on the CLR. But from my perspective most projects are C# and then there are just very few F# projects.

holtalanm• 7 years ago

I was going to say this. while i may not care much for C# because of its java-likeness, F# is a solid functional language that is definitely worth learning.

marmaduke3• 7 years ago

It seems like .NET resolves some of the limitations of the JVM (around generics, lowering of float point code, I’m sure there are others). So if you want a managed language VM but some of the magic of C++, .NET might be a nice place to be.

pjmlp4• 7 years ago

.NET took the right options from languages like Modula-3 and Delphi, even better now after the Midori improvements.

Just a bad decision, which was not to bet that strongly into AOT (NGEN was only for faster startups).

While UWP (and its former incarnation on Windows 8.x) do use AOT, that is still a couple of releases away to join standard .NET tooling.

Naturally there is also Xamarin and Unity IL2CPP/Bust stacks, but they are special cases.

bobbyi_settv• 7 years ago

lowering of float point code

What does this refer to and how is it handled better in .net than in java?

qznc• 7 years ago

Like Java and unlike C++, you have platform independent packages. Like C++ and unlike Java, you have features like value types (struct).

vaylian8• 7 years ago

True. Java makes it trivial to write cross-plattform code. But we are no longer in the 90s. There are plenty of cross-plattform C++ libraries available that make it easy to write cross-plattform programs. I do not think that this is such a major argument any longer.

And yes, Java is very feature-conservative.

MaxBarraclough• 7 years ago

There was a project to add structs (record types without heap allocation) to OpenJDK, but it seems to be dead. [0]

There's also this less dead looking project, with goals that seem pretty similar. [1] Perhaps some day Java will finally gain this feature that obviously should have been there in the beginning. There's a reason .Net has them.

[0] http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/169

[1] https://cr.openjdk.java.net/~briangoetz/amber/datum.html

cmiles742• 7 years ago

In my opinion it presents an alternative to Java. The licensing also seems easier to explain; Oracle has really worked hard to make Java licensing confusing.

vaylian8• 7 years ago

With so many other programming languages to choose from, "better than Java" does not seem to be a compelling argument to me.

DannyB22• 7 years ago

Java Licensing:

If you want to pay for a supported Java, with long term ongoing patches: call a commercial vendor of Java such as Oracle, Azul Systems, etc.

If you want a free and open source Java runtime, use Open JDK. Some sources of OpenJDK pledge to backport bug fixes from newer versions for some number of years. Or you can simply make sure your product continues to run on newer versions -- which for Java, according to history, has been easy to do.

Where to get Open JDK:

Adopt Open JDK https://adoptopenjdk.net/ https://github.com/AdoptOpenJDK

https://github.com/ojdkbuild/ojdkbuild

Open JDK http://openjdk.java.net/

Azul Systems Zulu http://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/

Amazon https://aws.amazon.com/fr/corretto/ https://github.com/corretto

Eclipse https://www.eclipse.org/openj9/ https://adoptopenjdk.net/releases.html?variant=openjdk11&jvm... https://github.com/eclipse/openj9

Red Hat https://developers.redhat.com/products/openjdk/download/ https://access.redhat.com/articles/1299013

SAP https://github.com/SAP/SapMachine

BellSoft https://bell-sw.com/java.html

Oracle JDK -- supported for a limited time unless you pay https://jdk.java.net/11/ Oracle Binary License Agreement - DANGER Will Robinson! http://java.oracle.com/

See:

Time to look beyond Oracle's JDK https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/time-to-look-beyond-oracles-jd...

Java is Still Free 2.0.0 https://medium.com/@javachampions/java-is-still-free-2-0-0-6...

Riverheart2• 7 years ago

There are a lot of people that are tied to C#/.Net that would never consider Linux as a target if not for the cross platform nature of core. It's the same reason Electron apps are on Linux. They'd be Windows/Mac only if not for the ease of being cross platform.

vaylian8• 7 years ago

So your point is that MdI wanted Linux to be not left out while .NET was on the rise? That seems plausible.

nizmow3• 7 years ago

I still don't understand why, in every thread about C#, someone has to start a thread about "why does anyone even use C#". Do you have the same attitude towards every programming language, or only some? Which programming languages are "blessed" by you?

vaylian8• 7 years ago

A programming language is a tool. And every tool has different strengths and weaknesses. I have worked with C# before and I have learned that it integrates well with WPF and other Windows infrastructure. But I have not seen any good applications on Linux yet (note: WPF does unfortunately not run under Linux and it likely never will[1]).

Do I consider C# to be a bad language? No, it is decent. But I do not see it shine outside of the Windows ecosystem. This might be a chicken-egg problem.

My main point is: MdI has supported .NET on Linux for so long. But I cannot grasp why. I admire his efforts and it would be beneficial to understand his motives so that I would know how I can use .NET on Linux for my own advantage. My post is really not meant to negatively criticise C#/.NET. Learning a language is often a multi-step process. The syntax is usually the first thing you learn. But the deeper you dive into the language the more you understand the design decisions. For example, it took me several attempts to understand Clojure and Lisps in general. And I assume that there are some important things about C# that I haven't understood yet.

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53954047/does-wpf-applic...

naasking4• 7 years ago

I still don't understand what C#/.NET brings to the table that the Linux ecosystem is lacking.

Did Python or Ruby bring something that the Linux ecosystem was lacking at the time? Do you see how this is a fairly irrelevant question?

But to answer it anyway, the .NET VM has quite a few advantages over the JVM, and the libraries and semantics of C# provide a superior experience to Java on the JVM. Of course, no language or VM is perfect.

sametmax3• 7 years ago

Yes. Python, when it started to get some steam, brought a readable competitor to Perl, and Ruby, a clean alternative to PHP once RoR got out.

caseymarquis• 7 years ago

You may be looking at it from the wrong perspective. .NET is the platform of choice for nearly all Windows applications. A large number of developers/companies are heavily invested in the platform. Many of us like and use Linux, but wish we could leverage our experience with .NET from our day jobs on Linux. This isn't about bringing .NET to Linux for me, it's about bringing Linux to .NET. Now I can deploy with containers. Now I can better contribute to the Linux ecosystem. Now I can push for Linux deployments at work. I'm very happy with this development, but I doubt it will affect many existing Linux developers who aren't already using .NET.

That said, having heavily used Java (6 or 7?), C# was a breath of fresh air (without going back to the headaches of C++). Java didn't even have proper anonymous functions at the time, so getting basic type inference, expression trees, a powerful reflection capability, and avoiding type erasure was a great improvement.

vaylian8• 7 years ago

Thanks! That's the type of answer I was hoping to get! So it is a lot less about the language itself but rather about the infrastructure and developer pool.

Yes, I have used Java 6 and 7 and yes, I found them limiting compared to other languages. I only used Java when I had to. I mean, even right now I would only pick it if the problem that I want to solve fits the "everything has to be part of a class" mindset.

GoblinSlayer2• 7 years ago

Java developers specifically asked for .net to work on linux.

gameswithgo• 7 years ago

Java with value types and way more control over memory layout, and unsigned integers, and simd intrinsics? Performance is a little better these days even without the simd intrinsics too.

dvlsg• 7 years ago

dotnet core is a pleasure to work with, too. I really appreciate the effort that went into making the CLI nice to use. Things like project init, package management, building, testing, etc.

bitwize• 7 years ago

Miguel has always wanted Linux to be open-source Windows. If there's a problem in software engineering or integration, you can rely on him to support and champion whatever approach Microsoft took to solve it. It's telling that his white paper in which he proposes Bonobo, and even more bloated and crufty version of COM for GNOME 1.x, was "Let's Make Unix Not Suck".

WorldMaker3• 7 years ago

C# has some at least some slight advantages to Java for the Linux ecosystem when building complex applications where you want a garbage collected and at-least semi-portable application.

1) C#'s interface to C/C++ (P/Invoke or Platform Invoke) is generally easier than the Java equivalent (JNI or Java Native Interfaces).

2) C#'s interface to COM and COM-like systems (Bonobo and Gnome/Gtk's GObject world, for instance) is a little bit stronger and again somewhat easier than the Java equivalent.

Admittedly, some of that "easier" is subjective, depending on one's background and training, but C# coming from working with complex platform combinations of Win32 and COM has had to have some focus on making platform and object system interop work well, whereas Java always felt like (to me, at least) platform interop was more often a "bug" to eventually work around with a "pure" Java library given the chance.

Semi-related aside: It's still something of a shame that anti-.NET sentiment several years back damaged so much of the reputations of so many of the best C# Linux applications. There was briefly a time where there were several very strong Gnome-environment C# applications in-box in Ubuntu, and I still think it was a mistake they were dropped. A lot of the arguments from that period somewhat soured me on running Ubuntu as a daily driver and some of my opinion of the larger Linux open source community. It was exciting seeing apps that I could so easily contribute to (as someone's whose day job efforts typically were C# at the time) in the box, it was angering seeing them denigrated not on their own merits but by indirect association with Microsoft (despite Mono's distance at the time, open patent promises, etc).

GordonS3• 7 years ago

There has also been a big push on performance and minimising heap allocations in .NET recently, and it's really been paying dividends.

.NET also makes it relatively simple to work with memory on the stack (especially via `stackalloc`), as well as unmanaged memory on the heap. Of course, many developers never have optimisation problems that require these tools, but they are fantastic when you do need them.

GordonS3• 7 years ago

Aside from the numerous reasons already given in this thread, I think the rise of the cloud has an impact - it's never been easier to spin up Linux servers (even for Microsoft shops!), and Windows people having their familiar toolset available has surely led to greater uptake of Linux.

zem2• 7 years ago

cross-platform desktop apps

nizmow3• 7 years ago

I wonder if it would be possible to extend this API to have a "GTK" or "Qt" backend, for simple GUI apps.

jacobush2• 7 years ago

Must be... in fact, it may be a great idea! This API must be simpler, so it must be much more doable than the other way around.

nizmow3• 7 years ago

I think I'll take a look at it, my guess is the layouts might be tricky to translate but with some sensible hard coding perhaps not too bad. Sadly the state of C#'s Qt and GTK libraries weren't great last I looked.

pjmlp4• 7 years ago

Miguel demoed a Xamarin.Forms implementation using it, which is kind of the other way around.

josephn• 7 years ago

I have a project idea and I've been trying to find the best way to implement ncurses user interface/experience for mobile screens. If anybody is interested or can offer help/advice them please get in touch. https://gitlab.com/swipe2e

asveikau• 7 years ago

curses/ncurses is a really fun library, simple to get going and can produce some good results. I think it's underutilized these days.

starik36• 7 years ago

This library needs a Forms Designer like in Visual Basic for DOS asap!

Revisting the gui.cs framework

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