NeoSmart Technologies reports on what the upcoming RTM of the Microsoft .NET 3.0 Framework means, both for developers and those seeking a look at what’s coming from Microsoft’s direction. It includes the positive implications this has on Microsoft’s laggy development process and the benefits it’ll provide to developers and system programmers too.
.NET 3.0’s Separate RTM and What It Means
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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They’re shipping their new development framework just in time for developers to program for an OS that was built with the old development framework. Normally you build the framework first so that the rest of the system can benefit.
Is that what they mean by laggy?
Probably becase .NEt is more like an Operating System on it’s own like Java and it really doesnt matter what Vista is, I think.
Also as a future note:
I am imagining a 3d holographic display. The windows will be 3d boxes instead of flat panels. The box windows can appear or disappear at will surrounding 3d objects. Text would be on cubes. You can move them around or access a 3d file menu by hand or with a wand. .Net seems to force you into this 3D setup but is it easy to write stuff natively for Vista
Is this supposed to support eventual libraries for 3d type displays since the windows will be Polygonal based.
I actually think holographic displays will become just as popular as 2d as you can demonstrate live activities this way allot better and it represents a floating monitor effect too for multiple people.
Also I am surprised they can’t run something like .NET on Linux
Oh wait that’s Mono but still I wonder
You already answered your own question – Mono. But viewing http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=193367, I learned that there will be native WPF/E (the subset of WPF that is embedded in browsers like Flash) engine for Linux. They are actually contracting it out to a 3rd party that wasn’t mentioned.
So with that seque, I vaguely recall that the WPF/E preview should be coming out soon. Anybody heard anything? The interesting thing about WPF/E (and unlike Flash) is that you’ll be able to write plain XAML and Javascript (like your normal web page with HTML/Javascript) and have the engine interpret that or deliver actual CIL bytecode (written in any .NET/Mono language).
So it looks like Adobe will get some competition in the real RIA space. As much as frameworks like GWT and Echo2 make AJAX app writing more like traditional thick clients, you’ve still got the limitations of HTML underneath it all.
Is this the project that used to be called Sparkle?
The WinFX/WPF/.NET whatever you call it looks like pretty cool stuff for Windows application developers. The traditional challenge in pushing a new development framework is that developers don’t relish the idea of moving from a familiar technology to something new.
Additionally, Microsoft now has the challenge of convincing the technical management at 3rd-party software vendors that .NET won’t lock their products to Windows. To some degree, Microsoft must shoulder the burden of making sure their proprietary frameworks operate on (at least) Mac and Linux.
Is this WPF/E for Linux port more-or-less the extent of this effort?
As long as it allows proprietary .NET applications to run on Linux, that will make most people happy. Linux has it’s own cross-platform development frameworks that work well on Windows, including Mono, so it’s not like Linux needs a complete .NET framework from Microsoft.
Is this the project that used to be called Sparkle?
All these code names are confusing (at least to me), but I believe Sparkle is a designer tool. WPF/E is the actual plugin browser engine that will run XAML, Javascript, and CIL code. It’s actually a subset of WPF.
To some degree, Microsoft must shoulder the burden of making sure their proprietary frameworks operate on (at least) Mac and Linux.
Microsoft is doing the Mac engine themselves. The demo actually shows it running on a Mac (Safari I guess), and IE and Firefox on windows.
Is this WPF/E for Linux port more-or-less the extent of this effort?
A third party is doing the port.
Linux has it’s own cross-platform development frameworks that work well on Windows, including Mono, so it’s not like Linux needs a complete .NET framework from Microsoft.
I’m guessing that you’ll be able to use the Mono compiler on Linux and Mac. I doubt Microsoft is porting any compilers or other tools over.
But as I mentioned before, you don’t need a CIL compiler to develop for WPF/E (unlike Flash which has to be compiled down). You’ll be able to write the XAML markup and javascript and send it as is – like a normal web page.
But things should get real interesting once this is released. Since applets pretty much died off, and despite the fact that Macromedia (Adobe) has only recently with their new framework understood the RIA market, Flash has been really the only game in town when it comes to really rich RIAs. The stuff that goes beyond the capabilities of AJAX, or at least makes it a lot simpler from a traditional thick client developer perspective.
I think WPF/E has a huge advantage that it doesn’t have to be compiled down like Flash, but Flash has huge browser market penetration numbers – something like 98% of all browsers have Flash 6 and above.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Adobe or a third party wrote a compiler for a subset of Java targetting Flash bytecode for the new Flash 9 JIT engine or a later version of the engine. Echo2 and the new GWT seems to point to the fact that many developers prefer to develop in a more familiar language, instead of the limited usage ActionScript 3.0.
I think connecting XAML like that to it will make it quite powerful. I guess Java might have XGL for this but am not sure.
Should make it more lightweight faster to load in page.
I don’t think any CIL is involved at all here… It’s a XAML parser and javascript engine along with a couple of helper libraries for drawing a subset of the WPF controls… I’m not sure though, and maybe they’ve implemented an actual portable VM environment, but Microsoft wouldn’t use Mono for that… they’d probably just port their own .NET stuff.
There is CIL involved, if you want it to be involved. You can write XAML and Javascript and the engine will just interpret the source, or you can compile any .NET language down to CIL and the engine will run that.
Oh, guys…. I’m so sorry for these MS-loving people…. why didn’t anybody tell them it’s RTFM? Poor fellas! 😀
This is a very good thing. As article stated, the most important thing is you now have a final framework to start building upon. I think this was the most logical move since when MS decided to backport those technologies to WindowsXP/2003. This also mean that no matter when Vista will be released, you can start building upon final technologies. This is way more important than releasing Vista itself…
They can take their time to release now… as developers, we have what we need…
Nearly all of .NET 2.0 is portable, none of .NET 3.0 (WinFX API) is, so what guarantee is there that .NET 3.5 will be, even though it’s all CLR and BCL updates?
They need to go back to separating the two or all that effort they put into making the framework OS indepdentent is going down the drain.
http://www.petitiononline.com/winfx/petition.html