Business: A Short Talk With Mono’s Miguel de Icaza

Novell’s de Icaza: Project not Mono-tonous
Click title for source at ComputerWorld.com…

May 25, 2007
Howard Dahdah

(Computerworld Australia) Miguel de Icaza has led the Mono Project, which implements Microsoft’s .Net development platform on Linux and Unix-like platforms, since it was announced in 2001. In that time, de Icaza’s enthusiasm for the project has remained fervent. He blogs regularly on Mono and related development tools, attends many development conferences promoting Mono, was a keen supporter of the recent Race to Linux 2.0 developer project and is again mentoring young developers in Google’s Summer of Code. De Icaza, who is vice president of developer platforms at Novell, took time out of his busy schedule to talk with Computerworld.

You have said that you can port an application in ASP.Net from Windows to Linux in less time than it takes to keep bidding on eBay for a game console and the controls. Why is it so easy?

We have a compatible implementation of the system. In the majority of the cases, the porting issues are really about the differences in the underlying operating system (Linux vs. Windows) than with our ASP.Net implementation (although there are still some minor differences between them).

Developers that are familiar with developing on Windows and deploying on Unix are already familiar with these issues so it is not much of a new thing for them. But .Net developers have to learn a few new things.

The recently held developer challenge Race to Linux 2.0 encouraged Visual Studio developers to port existing ASP.Net-based applications to Linux (using their cross-platform tool of choice (such as Mono, Grasshopper 2.0 Technology Preview, PHP and Ruby). What was the main goal of the project for you? What has Mono gained from this?

It is a useful external validation that what we are claiming actually is correct.

Sometimes when you are this close to the technology, you might be drinking your own Kool-Aid and might not keep an eye on the actual problems that developers are running into.

So the validation of our claims was there, but most importantly, it is interesting to read what the challenges that these developers had: what was easy and what was difficult, it is a bit of a “usability test” for developers. There is much to learn from this experience, and we hope to simplify this process more in the future.

You are mentoring a few people as part of Google’s Summer of Code. How is that going so far? And how do you think Mono will benefit from these developer projects?

Students have not officially started work (they will in a couple of weeks), but already some of them have started to write some code and submit some patches to the project.

We have had a great experience with the Google Summer of Code in the past two years, the majority of the projects we funded were successful, we had a very low failure rate, and the goal of having the students produce code that would eventually end up as an integral part of the project was achieved. In addition to that, many students that participated in the Summer of Code continue to be active contributors to the community, which was one of the goals that Google had with this effort in the first place.

We are incredibly happy that we got funded a third year in a row, and the projects this year are just as exciting as previous years, and if half of them are completed, they will become a nice addition to the Mono tool set.

You have said that one of the reasons that you created Mono was because you wanted to have better tools to develop software for Linux and Unix apps. Are you satisfied with the level Mono is at today in achieving this aim?

I am incredibly happy when I write code with Mono myself, and I believe that others have a similar experience, but there are of course areas that need to improve.

Some things that we want to complete are:

* Complete the MonoDevelop IDE.
* Offer tools for Visual Studio developers to deploy, test, debug and run applications with Mono on Unix.
* Integrate the debugger into the IDE.
* Offer debugging of Web applications and Web services.
* Provide tutorials, walk-throughs, how-tos and more FAQs.
* Create a repository of easy-to-install third-party libraries and components.
* Support many of the new APIs that people are starting to use.

And moving on from that, what is Mono’s legacy so far?

I like to think that we made many developers happy. It is included in pretty much every Linux distribution out there, and it is in use in some very interesting verticals (like the Sansa Connect MP3 player). But it is hard to judge from inside of the project as everything seems to be colored in that way.

Developers who would not ordinarily develop apps for Linux are now routinely porting their applications to Linux. How many applications for Linux have come about because of Mono. Is Linux indebted to Mono?

We have not really kept tabs on these numbers. We routinely find out about uses of Mono by accident or when someone files a bug report about a missing feature or a bug in Mono. And when they file the bug report, we happen to find out about a product using it. I wish we had a complete registry of applications using it, but we do not. The closest we have are the Companies Using Mono page and the Software and Libraries pages on the Mono Web site.

How do you get on with the developers at Microsoft?

We have a good relationship, and they have answered many of the hard questions over the years.

Why are you such a fan of Silverlight?

Although Flash and Silverlight are merely components that run as part of a larger part of a Web site, what is interesting about Silverlight is that you are able to write applications using the language, tools and libraries that you have come to expect from the .Net world.

So from a developer standpoint, it is nice to be able to use C# and other .Net languages for developing Web applications and implementing some of the rich controls that you can with a powerful canvas like Silverlight has. From the Mono perspective, it seems like a natural path for us to go to.

Are we getting closer to a life after Mono? Or is there plenty more for you to do on this project?

There are still plenty of things to do to improve Mono all around, so we will be working on it for quite some time. We also have a few nice surprises in store for the future.