MONO 2.0 Coming in March 2005

MONO 2.0 Coming in March 2005

Novell has lifted the lid on enhancements integrated into the next major release of mono, its development platform for enabling Microsoft .Net applications to run unchanged on LINUX. The forthcoming version, due to ship next march, will implement a native Visual Basic (VB.Net) Compiler and Windows Forms ( WinForms). Mono 2.0 will include native Visual Basic and WinForms and an update to the .NET application Programming interfaces(APIs).With VB.NET Support a windows shop can deploy all of their Visual Studio applications on Linux Server. Mono 1.0, available since june, includes developer tools and the infrastructure to run .Net client and server applications.

Mono has a C# compiler and Just in time and a head-of- time compilers. The platform implements the European Computer Manufacturers Association standards for C#, class libraries and the .NET Common Language Infrastructure, submitted by Microsoft.

Winforms within .NET is Microsoft’s recommended method for defining and generating graphical user interface (GUI) applications, which include such things as windows, dialogue boxes and buttons.

Apart from ease of use and checks that prevent coding bugs, using this method for all GUI applications can ensure a consistent display format, said Novell. According to De Icaza ( Novell development, Vice President) the Win forms API will be implemented for linux using the Gnome GUI libraries including Drawing.2D for graphics.