Mono Weekly News. Feb 10th, 2003

http://www.go-mono.org

1.1 Jabber/XMPP library for IM

1.2 SharpDevelop 0.94 is now released

1.3 The PostgreSQL Native Net Provider for Mono Npsql

1.4 Monodoc 0.1 out!

1.5 Remoting: Communication between AppDomains

1.6 Lots of improvements in the Visual Basic.NET implementation

1.7 MonoGLo: Other OpenGL binding

1.8 Wx.NET

1.9 libgnomeprint bindings started

1.10 PHP and Mono integrated

<?php
$Console = new Mono('System.Console');
$Console->WriteLine('Welcome to the .NET World');
?>

1.11 gtkhtml3 binaries for monodoc

1.12 Late breaking news!

2. Meet the team. This week Tim Coleman

The Mono team is integrated by contributors all over the world that are working really hard to get this project going further. In this section we will be meeting this people so we can know more about them and what they are doing.

This week we are proud to present Tim Coleman. Tim is a Canadian hacker who lives in Kitchener, Ontario (Canada) and works in Waterloo for Open Text (one of the fist companies to index the web). He studied Computer Science and Combinatorics & Optimization at the University of Waterloo. He is involved with gnome-db after he got started with Mono. He started out in Mono with some of the System.Xml namespaces. And he has been developing with databases ever since he started as a professional. Then his friends Daniel Morgan, Rodrigo Moya and Gonzalo Paniagua convinced him to help them out. As he was the only one to successfully install oracle on Linux, he was the first to start working on a libgda oracle provider. He gets a life by writing custom code for lots of different clients as well as creating modules to do whatever you want to do with them. Some time ago he also develop code for WindowMaker but stopped working on it. In his spare time he enjoys submiting patches for code if he finds useful, reading, doing puzzles, crosswords, a lot of mental stuff. "I write code as a hobby too. That's lots of fun."

Interview with Tim Coleman

MWN: You told us that some friends of you that form part of the Mono Team convinced you to come to Mono, is there any other reason?

Tim Coleman: The reason I came to Mono was that I was interested in learning more about web services. When I found that Mono didn't have that, I thought I would help in any way possible to bring Mono up-to-speed and then I just stayed around for the ride.

MWN: You have been a free software developer for a long time, what do you think about the impact Mono will have in the free software community?

Tim Coleman: Well, I don't really know that it will have a huge impact on the free software community. A lot of free software folks have a very negative view of Microsoft, and many of those people will wonder why they should use Mono instead of Java, which is not from Microsoft. I think it could lead to broader usage of more open operating systems, such as Linux or BSD, because software written for .NET will be able to run on those systems too. I think that some managers will see the potential impact on their bottom line and at least look into using free software on their servers, more than they already do. The real impact will be on people outside of the free software community who aren't as anti-establishment as the hard-core open source advocates.

MWN: But some core developers will be bringing that open technologies to the UN*X environments, don't you think that will make those anti-establishment people to finally accept the tools Mono is providing?, that their position is more due to a lack of information about what Mono is? and so when they will get in touch with it they will accept it? In deed it's a community effort and not a Microsoft product.

Tim Coleman No, I don't really think that bringing the tool to other platforms will necessarily change people's opinions. At least, not over night. :-) A lot of people are very hesitant given Microsoft's track record, and they will always have doubts. I think that Mono will be associated with Microsoft for quite a while. You don't have to go any farther than Slashdot to discover that. I think that over time, people will start to use Mono on Linux and elsewhere, I just think that the motivation will come from outside of the free software community. And don't look for it to take the world by storm.

MWN: Looking back in time we see that Mono has had a great development since it's beginning in a very short period. Which are the areas you have been contributing to this quick evolve since you joined the project and in which are you involved now?

Tim Coleman: All of my time in Mono has been spent in the class libraries. I started out, as I mentioned, interested in learning more about Web Services in .NET. I have quite a bit of experience in XML, so when I realized that there was no Web Services code in Mono, I started working on some of the System.Xml namespaces. That was last spring. Then, I left Mono for a couple of months to work on an Oracle database provider for libgda. When I came back to Mono, I decided that it was time to start developing some of the Web Services namespaces. I had some help in there, and it was good for a while. Along the way, I worked on some of the System.Xml.Serialization classes, because those are used by System.Web.Services. Then, I hit an impasse and I wasn't able to get around it. The great thing about Mono so far is that there is so much to do that when you hit a wall, you can just change your focus to an other area and come back. That's what I did -- I started working on the Mono SQL Server client provider, along with some help from Daniel Morgan, Gonzalo Paniagua and Rodrigo Moya. Just before Christmas I got very busy at work, so I have been away from Mono since then. I'm trying to get back into it. Just the other day I started working on some of the Oracle code that Daniel was working on, and I got it to compile on Linux. I think for the next little while I will be working on making that more complete. I will probably also be paying more attention to bugs that people email me about in the SQL Server/Sybase providers.

MWN: How complete is the ADO.NET implementation then?

Tim Coleman Well, that's really hard to say. At this point, I wouldn't even consider it for production use. I could make up a number, like 50%, and say it, but I don't think that would be very useful. Much of it is there and works. There are still lots of bugs to be found if you're looking for them, and that's what we really need right now. We need people with software that works on .NET to tell us what doesn't work on Mono. .NET isn't being accepted very quickly though, so I don't really think there is a large volume of code out there, and the number of people that have heard of Mono is relatively small, so we probably won't get that very soon. Of course, if you asked me, I would say to use the providers that I worked on, because they must be the best :-), but really, none of them are perfect, and none of them are ready for production use anyway, so use what you want and let us know about the bugs!

MWN: Can you give us any advice then (despite that of using your providers ;-))?

Tim Coleman: I think if people choose what database to use based on which provider they think is most bug-free, then they are not making an appropriate decision.

MWN: Could you say the final words of the interview?

Tim Coleman: I think that Mono is a truly exceptional project. I don't think I've talked to anyone on the team that wasn't friendly, or that wasn't interested in making Mono better. If we all work together, then we can all enjoy the fruits of our labour. We wouldn't be able to make this happen without each other.

3. Mailing List Activity

• Sterling Hughes sent an small patch which defines mono_load_image to mono_image_open as mono_load_image is no longer present within the mono library.
• Alejandro Sánchez Acosta started on some GnomePrint# bindings in gtk#. Cesar Octavio Lopez Nataren is helping with that too. Daniel Morgan said "once GnomePrint# can work, I wonder if we could get it to work with the System.Drawing.Printing namespace - especially PrintDocument", in reply to a guy that was asking for printing libraries in Mono.
• Sebastien Poulliot sent this: "I just commited a first version of Mono.Security.Win32 assembly in CVS. As it's name indicates this assembly is for Win32 only. It's goal is to permit the use of CryptoAPI under Windows for enhanced compatibility (like keypair persistance) and performance (like using a crypto accelerator - HSM). A more complete description is available at http://www.go-mono.org/crypto.html. Just a remainder: This assembly is NOT meant to be linked directly with any application. It's usage should be transparent to application that use (directly or not) the CryptoConfig class to create the cryptographic algorithms. So far the following CryptoAPI algorithm are supported:
  • random number generator (selectable using CspParameters)
  • hash algorithms (MD2, MD4, MD5 and SHA1);
• Rodrigo Moya: "gnome-db is obsolete. Make sure to not install it :-) libgda/libgnomedb/mergeant replace it."

4. CVS Activity