It was merely a coincidence. But just a week after Microsoft and Novell made a highly-controversial deal about Linux, I now probably hold the dubious distinction of being (one of) the first person to do a Linux-oriented presentation in the Microsoft Philippines office. OK, it's not a Microsoft event; it was organized by
PHINUG and just generously sponsored by Microsoft. But it was probably surreal to some of the attendees to see a presenter running not Windows but
Ubuntu Linux.
The slides can be downloaded in
OpenDocument (OpenOffice) format or
PowerPoint format. I was able to demonstrate running a Windows-compiled Windows Forms program on
Mono@Linux as well as ASP.NET 1.1 and ASP.NET 2.0 web pages (utilizing ASP.NET 2.0 controls and the new approach utilizing partial classes) using the xsp and xsp2 web server, respectively, while accessing a
PostgreSQL database. In addition, I was also able to demo creating a very simple
Gtk# app using the drag-n-drop facilities in
MonoDevelop ("Stetic"). Too bad I didn't have a Windows virtual machine so that I could have shown
how a Gtk# application looked like when running on Windows.
Those interested to find out more about creating cross-platform .NET applications can consult the following links:
In summary, I think cross-platform C# differs greatly from cross-platform Java with respect to the development mindset: in Java, cross-platform is the norm and you would have to make it jump through hoops in order to bind an app natively to the platform (e.g. JNI). On the other hand, with .NET the assumption is that you are primarily developing for Windows and that you would have to make your code jump through hoops in order to make it cross-platform.