[mitchty]

Yep, in a way the jvm is doing the one thing that native platforms haven't. That is provide a universal (in java land at least) interface in java bytecode to languages running within the jvm.

Think about the ffi annoyances with c->c++->other-lang, its so simple in jruby to use clojure libraries, or rhino for some other stuff, or vice-versa, or whatever.

And I'm not a java fanboy, but that fundamental aspect of the jvm as a platform is crazy cool.

[bitwize]

The same is true of Mono/.NET as well; in fact the CLR was designed for this and has features the JVM lacks, such as parametric types, invokedynamic, tail calls, etc.

If you're into functional programming the CLR is the runtime to beat.

[WildUtah]

CLR is the runtime to beat

Except it doesn't run on any useful platforms. Java makes the effort to be consistent and good on a wide variety of quality systems.

[jiggy2011]

I think MS missed a beat here, if they had pushed for the .Net CLR to be a first class and equal citizen on OS X , iOS and Linux they would probably be in a much more relevant position in the future.

[YeahKIA]

Its an open spec that can be implemented on any other platform that cares. Mono is available on many platforms btw

[shadowmint]

It's rubbish though.

Not the mono runtime; the fact that there are two runtimes.

The official MS one, and the Mono one, and although they're kind of compatible, in that your C# can be compiled to run on either of them (mostly, sometimes, if you haven't done anything fancy, if you're not using MVC, if you're not using a UI layer that isn't portable, if the version of mono you're using from A is the same as from B ( >_> unity...) ), this is FAR away from the java JVM, where you can ship an application that just runs on all the platforms.

Don't get me wrong, you can do that with C# too... if you use Mono only, and flip off the official M$oft .Net runtime.

...but the mono runtime is behind the curve, always playing catchup to the 'official' runtime, supporting a subset of the features, and everywhere runs different versions of the mono runtime. It's a mess.

You've got to admit, the JVM is 100% superior in this regard.

[sk5t]

I suppose you've never had a problem with two JVMs that ran a package but didn't behave quite the same way, to disastrous effect? Or dealt with software that only worked with one very specific version of the JRE that was exclusive from the equally specific JRE required by another bit of software?

To compare Mono to the MSFT CLR and call it rubbish by way of contrast to Java-land strikes me as hilarious. I'll choose .NET every time given that choice...

[jiggy2011]

This is true, but Mono has always lacked implementations of a bunch of APIs and had not quite as nice dev tools.

If there had been a true first party (i.e provided by MS .Net CLR) for other platforms it would probably have had massive traction.

[pbz]

No, it wouldn't. Let's be honest, people would say it's from Microsoft and not use it for that very reason. Could be better than JVM and still most wouldn't use it. Linus was right, the hatred of Microsoft is a disease, and a lot of people in the open source community suffer from it.

[pretoriusB]

>Its an open spec that can be implemented on any other platform that cares.

Which is something a lot different than an a project actively developed and supported on multiple platforms by Microsoft.

Xamarin is OK, but it's tiny (in resources and reach) compared to Microsoft.

[zanny]

Mono supports everything under the sun.

[topbanana]

There's no WPF

[zanny]

It uses GTK#. What do you expect, WPF is a Microsoft licensed tech, you can't blame Xamarin for not stealing it. A GUI written to GTK# is portable to ios, Android, OSX, Windows, and Linux, and a bunch more marginally obscure targets. Every platform under the sun.

[nirvdrum]

invokedynamic is new in JDK 7. It still has some maturing to do, but JRuby is already targeting it.

[thebluesky]

Scala provides tail call optimization and invoke dynamic has been in the JVM for years (since JDK7). The JVM is also considerably faster than the CLR and unlike Mono is heavily used in industry.

[camus]

Why would MS make .NET really cross plateform ? MS is here to sell Windows and Windows Software, nothing more. Mono is an unofficial hack and can be shut down anytime by Microsoft , i would not bet my career on that stuff.

[drivebyacct2]

Is the same true of LLVM?