[kuschku]

Which rich cross-platform GUI frameworks are you talking about?

Win32? Silverlight/Blend? XAML? MAUI? They're all windows only.

Gtk? Qt? Sure, they exist, but they're ancient and limited to long outdated paradigms.

I don't know if you can get QtQuick with KDE Kirigami to work on .NET, otherwise that might be one option.

Kotlin Multiplatform is btw a solution for building the same code for kotlin native, JVM and web to target all the OSes at the same time.

While Jetpack Compose is the Android Version of Compose, Compose Multiplatform is Compose for Kotlin Multiplatform.

> subject to the quirks and specifics of JVM implementations, build-systems and package management

That's a massive advantage over the arcane package management and build systems of .NET

Very few languages ever achieve a build and package management system as mature and usable as the Java ecosystem.

I've been waiting for 12 years for .NET to match Java's ecosystem, and it's still not there yet.

[neonsunset]

There are more than 10 sibling and gp comments that exhaustively address the GUI and other questions :)

> That's a massive advantage over the arcane package management and build systems of .NET. Very few languages ever achieve a build and package management system as mature and usable as the Java ecosystem. I've been waiting for 12 years for .NET to match Java's ecosystem, and it's still not there yet.

If you want to sell me on "advantages" of invoking Gradle or Maven over

    dotnet new web
    dotnet run
    curl localhost:port

or

    dotnet new console --aot
    echo 'Console.WriteLine($"Right now is {DateTime.Now}");' > Program.cs
    dotnet publish -o {here goes the executable}

or

    dotnet add package {my favourite package}

I suppose you would actually need 12 years of improvements given how slow if ever these things get resolved in Java land.

Also, what's up with Oracle suing companies for using incorrect JDK distribution that happens to come with hidden license strings attached?

[kuschku]

> {my favourite package}

Well, that's where the problem lies, isn't it? The ecosystem for .NET is extremely limited compared to what's available for the JVM

And the way JVM packages are distributed, with native libraries, BOMs and platforms allows more versatility than any other platform.

The build system may be better in dotnet, but that only really matters for the first 10 minutes. Afterwards, the other tradeoffs become much more important.

[neonsunset]

I don't think "JVM is more popular" argument does justice to Java (and Kotlin) strengths. With this reasoning, you could also say "C++ is more popular for systems programming" but it doesn't stop developers from switching to Rust, Zig or even C# as a wider scope and easier to use language that has gotten good at it.

Nonetheless, you could make this argument for select Apache products, but that's Apache for you. It does not hold true for the larger ecosystem and, at the end of the day, quantity is not quality, otherwise we would've all been swept by Node.js :)

Same applies to "packages that bundle native libraries".

First, they are always maintenance-heavy to manage with ever growing matrix of platforms and architectures. Just x86 alone is problem enough as all kinds of codecs perform wildly different depending if AVX2 or 512 is available vs SSE4.2 or even SSE2 without EVEX. Now add ARM64 with and without SVE2 to the mix. Multiply this by 2 or 3 (if you care about macOS or FreeBSD). Multiply linux targets again by musl and glibc. You get the idea. This a worst-case scenario but it's something Java is not going to help you with and will only make your life more difficult due to the reason below.

There is also an exercise in writing JNI bindings. Or maybe using Java FFM now which still requires you to go through separate tooling, build stage, deal with off-heap memory management API and still does not change the performance profile significantly. There's a reason it is recommended to avoid native dependencies in Java and port them instead (even with performance sacrifices).* Green Threads will only exacerbate this problem.

Meanwhile

    using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

    [DllImport("libc", EntryPoint = "putchar")]
    static extern int PutChar(int c);

    var text = "Hello, World!\n";
    foreach (var c in text) PutChar(c);

since C# 2 or maybe 1? No setup required. You can echo this snippet into Program.cs and it will work as is.

(I'm not sure if binding process on the ole Mono was any different? In any case, the above is a thing on Linux since 8 years ago at least)

Like with other false claims, the "better native packaging" one is easily disprovable. Just look at the list of supported platforms here: https://github.com/sandrohanea/whisper.net?tab=readme-ov-fil...

It even supports CoreML on iOS and macOS.

* Now applies to C# too but for completely different reason - you can usually replace data crunching C++ code with portable pure C# implementation that retains 95% of original performance while reducing LOC count and complexity. Huge maintenance burden reduction and "it just works" without having to ship extra binaries or require users to pull extra dependencies.

[kuschku]

> There is also an exercise in writing JNI bindings. Or maybe using Java FFM now which still requires you to go through separate tooling, build stage, deal with off-heap memory management API and still does not change the performance profile significantly. There's a reason it is recommended to avoid native dependencies in Java and port them instead (even with performance sacrifices).* Green Threads will only exacerbate this problem.

I'm not sure if you've used JNA before? That's been the state of the art for many years: https://github.com/java-native-access/jna

    public interface MSVCRT extends Library {
        public static MSVCRT Instance = (MSVCRT) Native.load("msvcrt", MSVCRT.class);
    
        void printf(String format, Object... args);
    }

    public class HelloWorld {
        public static void main(String[] args) {
            MSVCRT.Instance.printf("Hello, World\n");
            for (int i=0;i < args.length;i++) {
                MSVCRT.Instance.printf("Argument %d: %s\n", i, args[i]);
            }
        }
    }

> "C++ is more popular for systems programming"

Sure, and it's got many great libraries – but actually using those is horrible.

You're absolutely right about Rust though. crates.io and cargo are amazing tools with a great ecosystem.

The primary issue I've got with the .NET ecosystem is actually closely related to that. Because it's so easy to import native libraries, often there's no .NET version of a library and everyone uses the native one instead. But if I actually want to build the native one I've got to work with ancient C++ build systems and all the arcane trouble they bring with them.

> Same applies to "packages that bundle native libraries".

You seem to have misunderstood. The fun part of the maven ecosystem is that a dependency doesn't have to be a jar, it can also be an XML that resolves to one or multiple dependencies depending on the environment.

[neonsunset]

> The primary issue I've got with the .NET ecosystem is actually closely related to that. Because it's so easy to import native libraries, often there's no .NET version of a library and everyone uses the native one instead. But if I actually want to build the native one I've got to work with ancient C++ build systems and all the arcane trouble they bring with them.

What is the reason to continue making statements like this one? Surely we could discuss this without trying making accusations out of thin air? As the previous conversation indicates, you are not familiar with C# and its toolchain, and were wrong on previous points as demonstrated. It's nice to have back and forth banter on HN, I get to learn about all kinds of cool things! But this happens through looking into the details, verifying if prior assumptions are still relevant, reading documentation and actually trying out and dissecting the tools being discussed to understand how they work - Golang, Elixir, Swift, Clojure, etc.

> You seem to have misunderstood. The fun part of the maven ecosystem is that a dependency doesn't have to be a jar, it can also be an XML that resolves to one or multiple dependencies depending on the environment.

Same as above.

> JNA

I was not aware of it, thanks. It looks like the closest (even if a bit more involved) alternative to .NET's P/Invoke. Quick search indicates that it comes at an explicit huge performance tradeoff however.

From https://github.com/zakgof/java-native-benchmark?tab=readme-o...

"Now let's look into performance of the native call only, stripping out the struct allocation and field access:"

    Native call only (average time, smaller is better)

    JmhCallOnly.jna_direct   1373.435 ±  70.343  ns/op
    JmhCallOnly.jna          1346.036 ±  72.239  ns/op
    JmhCallOnly.bridj         383.992 ±  50.000  ns/op
    JmhCallOnly.jnr           298.334 ±  48.785  ns/op
    JmhCallOnly.jni_javacpp    56.605 ±   8.087  ns/op
    JmhCallOnly.foreign        49.717 ±   6.667  ns/op

This uses Win32 API. I will post numbers in a bit. .NET interop overhead in this scenario usually comes at 0.3-2ns (i.e. single CPU cycle which it takes to retire call and branch instructions) depending on the presence or absence of GC frame transition, which library loader was chosen and dynamic vs static linking (albeit with JIT and dynamic linking the static address can be baked into codegen once the code reaches Tier 1 compilation). Of course the numbers can be presented in a much more .NET-favored way by including the allocations that Java has to do in the absence of structs and other C primitives.

[kuschku]

> Quick search indicates that it comes at an explicit huge performance tradeoff however.

That's definitely true, but it should be possible to reimplement JNA on top of the new FFM APIs for convenient imports and high performance at the same time.

> Of course the numbers can be presented in a much more .NET-favored way by including the allocations that Java has to do in the absence of structs and other C primitives.

Hopefully Project Valhalla will allow fixing that, the current workarounds aren't pretty.

I fully agree though that .NET is far superior in terms of native interop.

> As the previous conversation indicates, you are not familiar with C# and its toolchain,

I've been using .NET for far over a decade now. I even was at one of the hackathons for Windows Phone developers back in the day.

Sure, I haven't kept up with all the changes in the last 2-3 years because I've been so busy with work (which is Kotlin & Typescript).

That said, it doesn't seem like most of these changes have made it that far into real world projects either. Most of the .NET projects I see in the real world are years behind, a handful even still targeting .NET Framework.

> were wrong on previous points as demonstrated.

So far all we've got is a back and forth argument over the same few points, you haven't actually shown any of my points to be "wrong".

[hermitdev]

> Which rich cross-platform GUI frameworks are you talking about? > Win32? Silverlight/Blend? XAML? MAUI? They're all windows only.

MAUI is not windows only. I have a MAUI app on my android phone. Cross-platform? yes. Rich? Now, I wouldn't call it that.

[kuschku]

> NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) apps can be written for the following platforms:

> - Android 5.0 (API 21) or higher is required.

> - iOS 11 or higher is required

> - macOS 11 or higher, using Mac Catalyst.

> - Windows 11 and Windows 10 version 1809 or higher, using Windows UI Library (WinUI) 3.

Okay, where's Linux? That's what Mono was originally made for and where Mono really shines.

Also, the development experience isn't great either:

> - If you are working on Linux, you can build and deploy Android apps only

> - You need a valid Visual Studio or IntelliCode subscription

The getting started guide only exists for Windows and macOS and the forum post announcing experimental Linux support is full of caveats.

I don't think you and I would agree on what "cross-platform" means, especially in the context of Mono being donated to Wine, which is a heavily linux-centric discussion topic.

[neonsunset]

> - If you are working on Linux, you can build and deploy Android apps only

> - You need a valid Visual Studio or IntelliCode subscription

You don't: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-dotne... (DevKit, which is the licensed one, is completely optional - it gives you VS-style solution explorer. You can already get it with e.g. F#'s Ionide that works for any .NET file in the solution, though I use neither)

Or https://github.com/razzmatazz/csharp-language-server with either Neovim or Emacs.

> Okay, where's Linux? That's what Mono was originally made for and where Mono really shines.

Regretfully, you have not read the rest of the discussion that talks about this a lot, so here it goes:

Uno: https://platform.uno/docs/articles/get-started-vscode.html?t...

(Uno has more involved setup and build than Avalonia but has way better mobile targeting, and casual reports indicate smaller memory footprint)

Avalonia: https://avaloniaui.net + https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Avalonia...

    dotnet new --install Avalonia.Templates
    dotnet new avalonia.app
    dotnet run

(can also do F# and Elmish F# with FuncUI, and native binary build with 'dotnet publish -p:PublishAot=true' without additional config)

Gir.Core (GTK4 and co., successor to GTK#): https://gircore.github.io/docs/use.html

ImGui with Silk.NET: https://github.com/dotnet/Silk.NET/blob/main/examples/CSharp...

[kuschku]

> You don't

Well, those sentences were quoted from Microsoft's own documentation...

Sure, you've shown that some tooling exists, but it's sadly not easy to discover or as well supported