
Mono 3.2 - pmattos
http://www.mono-project.com/Release_Notes_Mono_3.2
======
sambeau
Mono is HUGE thanks to Unity3D.[1]

I suspect that C#/Mono has become the de-facto second development
language/environment for iOS thanks to Unity3D (an irony that doesn't escape
me). It's certainly what all the iOS games programmers I know personally use
(and I know a lot).

Wikipedia have Unity down as having over 1 million developers developing for
iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry 10, OS X, Linux, web browsers, Flash,
PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows Phone 8, and Wii U.[2]

Unity themselves claim[3]:

* 2M REGISTERED DEVELOPERS

* 400K MONTHLY ACTIVE DEVELOPERS

* 225M TOTAL WEB PLAYER INSTALLS

* 6.6M EDITOR SESSIONS JUN

[1][http://unity3d.com](http://unity3d.com)

[2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_\(game_engine\))

[3] [http://unity3d.com/company/public-
relations/](http://unity3d.com/company/public-relations/)

~~~
fhd2
And Unity3D is huge thanks to XNA (which was highly popular among amateur game
developers) and the demise thereof, I think. Quite ironic indeed, makes me
wonder how things would have turned out if .NET hadn't been standarised.

~~~
migueldeicaza
Unity and XNA are very different.

XNA is a very basic library to roll your own game engine.

Unity is a game engine that handles scenes, game objects, physics, animations,
complex 3d animations and very sophisticated graphics effects all blended
together in a powerful IDE.

XNA is a hammer and nails, Unity is a house.

------
yapcguy
I like C# and I'm impressed with Mono but there is just something not right.
It might be irrational but knowing that Microsoft's DNA is everywhere makes me
feel uncomfortable.

I'm also not happy that Linux is a second class citizen - there is no Xamarin
Studio for Linux, the latest version of MonoDevelop is not packaged for Linux,
and the latest version of Mono 3.2 is only packaged for Mac as an easy
download.

The idea of writing most of my application logic in C# and reusing it on
desktop and mobile platforms is appealing, but I don't want to use proprietary
libraries like Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android, while on the desktop I don't
know how well supported GTK# and Qyoto are.

~~~
coldtea
> _I like C# and I 'm impressed with Mono but there is just something not
> right. It might be irrational but knowing that Microsoft's DNA is everywhere
> makes me feel uncomfortable. (...) I'm also not happy that Linux is a second
> class citizen_

The first kind of thinking is what got us into the second kind of situation.

Enjoy ...Vala.

~~~
jnbiche
Vala is an incredible project. With a relatively small number of contributors,
it's turned into an easy language to work with, that can compile into shared
libraries with automatic bindings for Python, Ruby, Lua, etc., and get near C
performance. GTK bindings are pretty complete. With some effort (I hear --
never tried it), it can even run on Windows and OSX. Vala may be one of the
most underrated Linux projects around.

What's wrong with Vala?

~~~
yapcguy
Vala looks interesting.

It would appear that with GTK libraries available on Windows and OSX, a port
of a Vala app should be trivial. Valac compiles to C and then GCC takes over
for the rest of it.

It seems like the most well-known Vala apps are managed in San Francisco by
Yorba, however they're only for Linux.
[http://www.yorba.org/projects/](http://www.yorba.org/projects/)

Any examples of cross-platform apps written in Vala?

------
forgotAgain
Is Xamarin moving away from the base mono-project? I mean it as an honest
question, not a troll. The 3.2 release seems mostly aimed at mobile
development and cutting off support for previous major versions (2.10 and
3.0). Further, there was never an official stable release of 3.0.

It's their choice if they want to and they've done great service for the
community with what they've already done. But if they've changed directions I
think they should come out and say it so current and potential future users of
the platform know.

~~~
giulianob
Mono 3.0 stable has been out for a while. There just wasn't many binaries for
it so you have to compile it yourself mostly.

~~~
forgotAgain
Their download page indicates that 2.10 is the last stable version.

[http://www.go-mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html](http://www.go-
mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html)

~~~
yapcguy
This is one of the reasons why I have a bad feeling about Mono (see my other
comment).

In another HN discussion, a person from Xamarin said they didn't have the
resources to keep Linux package management up-to-date.

However, they scored $16 million in funding this month, so going forward they
certainly do have the resources.

------
atesti
I wonder when all the builds will appear on the download page, if ever:
[http://www.go-mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html](http://www.go-
mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html)

The newest stuff is still 2.10, expect for mac

------
giulianob
Please someone release an Ubuntu 12.x package for this. I was using Meebey's
PPA for 3.0 but it hasn't been updated in a while.

------
viyyer
I don't see any mention of moonlight? Has support for it been completely
dropped? Is anyone else maintaining it ?

~~~
jimmcslim
As goes Silverlight, so does Moonlight...

~~~
viyyer
Silverlight though did not have a new version released in 2 years but there
updates even few weeks ago. I see video platforms only on silverlight.

~~~
krakensden
For better or worse, the DRM part won't make it's way to Mono, so Moonlight is
sort of useless for that.

------
pbsdp
> _" Google contributed ports of NaCl for ARM and Amd64."_

So, Mono/C# in Chrome? If NaCl/PNaCl becomes available outside the Chrome App
Store, that could be pretty exciting -- Mono does an excellent job with AOT
performance and mobile-scale memory utilization.

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
Mono has been running in Chrome for a while. Bastion's NaCl version is Mono
based.

~~~
lucian1900
I think they had to use a Mono fork when they released Bastion, though. This
might be just Google integrating that fork.

