Mono Project

1
Mono Project

• Miguel de Icaza
• (miguel_at_ximian.com)

2
Project Overview

• Mono
• Open Source implementation of .NET Framework
• Development tools
• Runtime engine
• Compatible class libraries.
• Based on the ECMA tc39 tg1/tg2/tg3 standards
• 1 Fun Open Source Project.
• Also, the most important one -)

3
Need

• Fix the rusty development platform.
• Reduce cost of development
• Evolution 850k-wc, 17 people, 3years.
• GC, safe runtime eliminate source of errors.
• Threaded runtime enable many new uses.
• Keep multi-language culture
• Better languages to develop multi-year software.

4
Development Tools

• Compilers produced by the Mono team
• C compiler (100)
• IL Assembler with generics support (90)
• VB.NET (50)
• Jscript (10)
• Debugger
• Both Mono and Unix applications.
• Documentation system

5
The Mono team.

• 7 full time developers from Novell.
• 3 bound to contracts
• 1-2 full time developers partly donated.
• OpenLink's help in Windows.Forms.
• 150 part-time contributors.
• Coding, documentation, testing.

6
C

• High level systems programming language
• Strong typing
• OO, single inheritance, multiple interface
• Application development language
• Not appropriate for scripting tasks.
• Attributes
• Novel mechanism annotate elements
• C 2.0 working with ECMA team.
• Iterators, anonymous methods, generic types,

7
Runtime Engine

• Services
• JIT/AOT compilation.
• Garbage Collection.
• Thread management.
• Language independent

8
Runtime Engine

9
Mono Today

• Self hosting
• C written in C
• Second generation compile engine.
• Early debugger.
• Components
• Kernel
• Xml (xpath,xslt)
• asp.net (webforms)
• ado.net

• Mono
• Mozilla
• Gtk
• Vorbis
• OpenGL
• Apache ASP.NET
• Cairo
• Other
• ZipLib
• WT

10
Mono components
11
Gtk GUI toolkit.

• Binding to existing Gnome GUI toolkit.
• Integrates with existing desktop.
• Language bindings fit the Gnome tradition.
• Fairly complete API audit still pending.
• Various applications developed with it.
• Mozilla bindings included.

12
Incomplete Windows.Forms

• Win32 version most advanced.
• Uses Wine as a library.
• Plenty of controls/behavior missing.
• Lack of Win32 GUI expertise.
• Best compatibility (P/Invoke and Wndproc)
• Integration track Gtk themes
• Gtk version integrates with desktop.
• Can not support tricky WndProc/PInvoke calls

13
Documentation Project

• Monkeyguide
• Tutorial on .Net, Mono, Gtk, Glade, etc.
• Api Docs
• Ecma body.
• Gtk documentation.
• The Spanish Hackers
• Integrate all the sources
• MonoDoc

14
New VM

• Second Generation VM
• Pre-compilation
• Portability
• Optimization platform.
• Internally
• CIL -gt MIR -gt LIR
• SSA transform (a few today, more tomorrow)
• Register Allocation Instruction scheduling.

15
Mono and Interop

• Cross Language Interop
• Similar in spirit to CORBA interop subset
• Reusing existing C code
• Platform Invoke
• Custom Marshalling.
• Embedding the Mono Runtime
• Just like embedding Python.

16
Interesting case Java

• IKVM jit compiler from jvm to cil.
• Jeroen developed it on .NET in Windows.
• Zoltan fixed the Mono issues.
• Exposes Java lt-gt .NET object bridge.
• Very robust.
• Runs Eclipse, Jython, others.

17
CLS Interop subset

C
18
Platforms

• JIT
• X86 Linux, xxBSD, Windows.
• PPC Preview in October.
• Interpreter
• StrongArm.
• PPC, Sparc, S390
• Hard to balance
• Desire to add more optimizations vs ports.

19
More information

• Mono
• http//www.go-mono.com
• http//www.go-mono.com/contributing.html
• Microsoft.NET
• http//msdn.microsoft.com/net
• Ikvm (http//www.ikvm.net)
• Team
• mono-devel-list_at_ximian.com
• Myself
• miguel_at_ximian.com