Comment by mozumder

11 years ago

So, why would a Mac user develop in it, instead of in a Windows (virtual) machine?

How would .NET compare to Apple's native environment?

I guess the whole point is to write cross-platform code, but is the .NET environment that much better than Swift/Xcode?

I mean, Java never really caught on with the Mac user base.

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mozumder

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rmsaksida  11 years ago

One advantage is developing server-side .NET apps without the need of a Windows VM, with the aid of regular Unix tools in your regular dev environment. That's a win in my book.

But a cross-platform CLR opens up some possibilities even for desktop or CLI apps. The wealth of the .NET ecosystem is compelling.

emodendroket  11 years ago

> I guess the whole point is to write cross-platform code, but is the .NET environment that much better than Swift/Xcode?

Well, probably it is better if you have (say) a company full of people who know how to write C# but have never used Swift. And the whole write once run anywhere thing is nice (sure, native apps "feel" better, but if there are no native apps I'd rather have a Java version than nothing).

thalesmello  11 years ago

> I guess the whole point is to write cross-platform code, but is the .NET environment that much better than Swift/Xcode?

You said it all. The whole point is cross platform development.

People use Swift to develop apps for Apple products. Before Dot.net was made open source, people only used it to develop for Microsoft platforms.

The fact Dot.net is now crossplatform makes it possible for GNU/Linux and Mac users to consider it for development.

  • notsony  11 years ago

    So when will Swift be made open-source?

    I am not going to make the same mistake twice and be tied down to a language (Objective-C) and private APIs (Cocoa, iOS, etc) which are useless outside of Apple's ivory tower.

    I had always thought of C# and Mono as a potential cross-platform solution, but now that .NET is open-source and Microsoft are pushing it hard, even on Linux, it has become a viable one.

    I suspect I am not the only Mac->iOS developer who is thinking along these lines.

UK-AL  11 years ago

For mac users, it's probably going to used for web development rather than native apps.

Although there are some good bindings to cocoa to do so.