[1253] in Software_Announce
mcs (C# compiler)/Mono installed on Athena
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alex T Prengel)
Fri Nov 19 18:22:34 2004
To: software-announce@MIT.EDU
cc: alexp@MIT.EDU, cfyi@MIT.EDU, facdev@MIT.EDU, dupuis@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 18:18:57 -0500
From: Alex T Prengel <alexp@MIT.EDU>
I've installed the latest available production release (1.0.4) of Mono
on Athena for Linux (unfortunately it's not supported well enough on
Sun to make a build feasible). Mono is an Open Source project whose
goal is to reimplement in Open Source as much of Microsoft's .NET
enviroment as possible, with a variety of enhancements.
The most fully developed tool is the C# compiler, mcs, that generates
CIL bytecode in a binary .exe file. Such .exe files generated by Mono
should run unchanged in Microsoft's .NET environment.
I've installed most components except for XSP Web server and database
connectivity. gtk-sharp and libgdiplus are included, along with
supporting graphics libraries (cairo, glitz, libpixman), enabling
System.Drawing. There is also a full installation of wine and winelib,
enabling System.Windows.Forms.
Although compiling and running a "Hello World" program is as simple as:
setup mono-gtk
mcs helloworld.cs (generates bytecode file helloworld.exe)
mono helloworld.exe (runs the bytecode file)
you will need to work through the documentation (or examples in the
mono-gtk_v1.0.4 locker) to build anything substantial. The What Runs
Where entry:
http://web.mit.edu/acs/www/languages.html#mcs
will lead you to much of it; there are man pages (starting with m*)
for most of the main components in the locker; there is also an online
help system, accessible after doing the setup command above by:
monodoc
Unfortunately, a substantial number of entries are missing- Mono is a
work-in-progress and will probably feel rough around the edges; although a
lot works, some things don't and may be missing or buggy. It's under very
active development though- and it's quite likely that a lot of this will
be fixed in future releases. A Visual Basic compiler, mbas, is included, but
it's not yet of production quality.
Alex
