.NET and Mono. Call for action: ask for retraction

[Jeff Bone]

Philippe Lourier wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 01:10:57AM -0500, Jeff Bone wrote:
> >
> > [cut]
> >
> >
> > As much as I hate to say it, .NET looks like a good thing to me ---
> > Java done broadly and right --- and it stands to have a significant
> > positive impact on the ability to write cross-platform code.
>
> In fact .NET code will not be, and is not meant to be, cross
> platform, and the aim of the various open source / free software
> .NET projects such as MS or Mono or .GNU is not to create
> environments to host portable code.  From MS viewpoint, the CLI
> provides services to programming languages -types (arrays, lists)
> garbage collection, etc...- rather than system level services.
> There;s some overlap with system stuff but the focus was not on
> creating an all-encompassing platform like Java (when I asked Dave
> Stutz about portability he said "we're not WORA".)

While this is true, the CLI is a necessary though incomplete step to
cross-platformism.  The next part, obviously services interfaces, is
required;  but the class library provides at least a start to abstracting
that out.

jb