7 ms·

Not a .NET developer, so apologies for the dumb question, but why did MS release a second open source .NET implementation around the same time as they acquired

Not a .NET developer, so apologies for the dumb question, but why did MS release a second open source .NET implementation around the same time as they acquired Xamarin? Do .NET core and Mono compete with one another? Do they serve complementary roles? Why would I choose one over the other?

dep_b 8y ago
.Net core replaces Mono.
- nbevans 8y ago
  Not according to Miguel it doesn't.
  - philliphaydon 8y ago
    Don’t know what his opinion is but I think .net core 3 would be closer to replacing mono than 2.X
- mythz 8y ago
  .NET Core is superior than Mono for Server Software like ASP.NET Web Apps but Mono is more suitable for embedded environments like iOS/Android/PlayStation/Xbox,etc and is also what's used in Microsoft's new Blazor project for running C# Apps in Web Assembly (https://github.com/aspnet/Blazor https://github.com/aspnet/Blazor).
sremani 8y ago
From what I remember reading a post or listening to podcast is .net core is "server-centric" and mono is "client-centric" also relative "foot-print" in size.
mrblah 8y ago
My understanding is that Mono is being billed as a client framework (Monogame, Xamarin, Unity, Blazor) while Core is more for the server/systems target. To add to the confusion, ".Net Standard" is a library compilation target that should work everywhere (even the legacy Windows-only .Net Framework). Interestingly, the newly MIT-licensed Xenko game engine compiles to .Net Standard libraries which is how it supports so many platforms (via barebones launcher/shim projects for whichever framework implementation is desired). Edited for clarity, thx.
- benaadams 8y ago
  .Net Standard is what you build libraries against; its the abstract contract of the runtime. Then .NET Framework, .NET Core, Mono, Unity, etc runtimes then implement that contract so a library built against .Net Standard will work on any of the runtimes.
headmelted 8y ago
I'll take a stab at this. .NET Core and Mono are not exactly analagous. A better comparison historically would have been Mono to .NET Framework (i.e. classic .NET). .NET Framework is a fairly expansive set of standard libraries bundled with a runtime - it's commonly used and well-supported, and dates back to about 2001, give-or-take a beta or two. There's a lot of current and legacy applications built on this out in the wild. .NET core is effectively a do-over for the longer term in the form of a minimal set of dependencies that imports more of the standard library separately. There's a couple of reasons for doing this - primarily the parts that have been abstracted out mean that .NET core runs in a lot more places than the classic framework (including natively on devices like the Raspberry Pi, for example), and can also be (and is) fully open-source (the classic framework is mostly open-source these days as it is, but licensing problems meant that not every part of the toolchain could be opened up). There's also the question of expectations when it comes to community changes. .NET Framework was adopted in many quarters on the basis that it was developed by Microsoft directly, and bureaucratically opening it up to community changes after the fact becomes problematic due to the massive number of stakeholders and their expectations. I'm sure someone else can add more info but as I understand it this is the gist.
- sevensor 8y ago
  Thank you, that helps!
- scarface74 8y ago
  Just to confuse things even more, there is also .Net Standard. (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/09/26/introducing-net-standard/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/09/26/introduci...). .Net Framework (Windows only), .Net Core and Xamarin are all implementations of .Net Standard. To add even more confusion, ASP.Net Core can run either on .Net Core or .Net Framework.
  - bargl 8y ago
    I know I've over simplified this for myself. But the way that I look at it is like so. .Net Standard is an "Interface" - No implementation behind the scenes just a list of apis. .Net Framework, .Net Core, Xamarin are all "classes" or implementations of .Net Standard. ASP.NET Core only relies on .NET standard which is implemented by both .Net Framework and .Net Core. Which means it can run on both. ASP.NET (Framework) does not rely on .Net Standard but directly links to the implementation of .Net Framework. Which means those libraries can't run anywhere and are instead limited to only .NET Framework. I'm no Jon Skeet, or tech guru. So please take this explanation with a grain of salt and if I'm wrong correct me as needed. This is just how I've wrapped my head around it.
benaadams 8y ago
For server on Windows, Linux and MacOS you'd probably sway .NET Core. For client on Windows, UWP is .NET Core, and WinForms or WPF currently .NET Framework. Though .NET Core 3.0 is meant to bring the full set of Windows UI stacks to .NET Core https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2018/08/08/are-your-windows-forms-and-wpf-applications-ready-for-net-core-3-0/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2018/08/08/are-your-... For Tizen you'd also use .NET Core For client on macOS or Linux you use Mono For games you'd probably use Unity (Mono based) For iOS, tvOS, watchOS, Solaris, Android, Solaris, IBM AIX and i, BSD (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD), PlayStation 4, XboxOne, WebAssembly you'd use Mono Can still use Mono for client on Windows and the ASP.NET Core stack is quite happy running on Mono on the server; but they have different focuses. If you were building a library you'd target the .NET Standard 2.0 "contract" and it would cover all the runtimes.
- colemickens 8y ago
  Hm, curious - why do you say wasm and XboxOne would lean toward mono? Doesn't Blazor target .NET Core? I would've assumed .NET Core w/ UWP would be first class citizens on XboxOne? Thanks in advance! Edit: maybe I was confused about Blazor. Looks like it can work with ASP.NET Core, but the info I'm finding talks about building with mono. I guess the more interesting question is, do you think Mono will remain important for the places you've mentioned, or will be replaced more and more by .NET Core? Especially given the UI goals with .NET Core 3 (and my own biased belief that .NET Core is the clear unabashed future of .NET).
  - pionar 8y ago
    WASM (Blazor) uses the Mono runtime. > I guess the more interesting question is, do you think Mono will remain important for the places you've mentioned, or will be replaced more and more by .NET Core? Especially given the UI goals with .NET Core 3 (and my own biased belief that .NET Core is the clear unabashed future of .NET). I don't know what the future is for Mono. Mono currently has support for platforms that .NET Core doesn't specifically target - iOS, Android, native code through Unity, WASM, etc. It'll probably start to move toward specifically supporting those platforms while continuing to support newer versions of the .NET Standard. .NET Core/.NET Standard is the future of mainstream .NET. .NET Framework is dead. I've heard it from Microsoft people directly. There probably will never be a 4.9, and there will definitely never be a 5.0.
mandeepj 8y ago
This is a really great question, in fact. Normally, people go with what's available. Without connecting the dots.
manigandham 8y ago
.NET Framework was first, the major install on Windows only. Mono came after, to try and replicate .NET on non-Windows and with an open-source approach. Eventually .NET Framework code was open-sourced (at least read only in the beginning), which also helped Mono get better. .NET Core was created to take the aging .NET Framework and rebuild for a faster, easier deployment, quick release cycle, and cross-platform on Linux and Mac OS; without hurting the decades of backwards compatibility. Mono meanwhile became the base for Xamarin for mobile apps and Unity as a gaming engine. Even though Microsoft acquired Xamarin, Mono already had much uptake in both of these scenarios that it didn't make sense to attempt replacing it, so now we have Mono for mobile+games and .NET Core for the rest. .NET Framework will still be around for a decade but is effectively retired and .NET Core 3.0 will fill in any remaining gaps for Windows apps that still need the full framework today.

dep_b 8y ago

.Net core replaces Mono.

nbevans 8y ago
Not according to Miguel it doesn't.
- philliphaydon 8y ago
  Don’t know what his opinion is but I think .net core 3 would be closer to replacing mono than 2.X
mythz 8y ago
.NET Core is superior than Mono for Server Software like ASP.NET Web Apps but Mono is more suitable for embedded environments like iOS/Android/PlayStation/Xbox,etc and is also what's used in Microsoft's new Blazor project for running C# Apps in Web Assembly (https://github.com/aspnet/Blazor https://github.com/aspnet/Blazor).

sremani 8y ago

From what I remember reading a post or listening to podcast is .net core is "server-centric" and mono is "client-centric" also relative "foot-print" in size.

mrblah 8y ago

My understanding is that Mono is being billed as a client framework (Monogame, Xamarin, Unity, Blazor) while Core is more for the server/systems target. To add to the confusion, ".Net Standard" is a library compilation target that should work everywhere (even the legacy Windows-only .Net Framework). Interestingly, the newly MIT-licensed Xenko game engine compiles to .Net Standard libraries which is how it supports so many platforms (via barebones launcher/shim projects for whichever framework implementation is desired). Edited for clarity, thx.

benaadams 8y ago
.Net Standard is what you build libraries against; its the abstract contract of the runtime. Then .NET Framework, .NET Core, Mono, Unity, etc runtimes then implement that contract so a library built against .Net Standard will work on any of the runtimes.

headmelted 8y ago

I'll take a stab at this. .NET Core and Mono are not exactly analagous. A better comparison historically would have been Mono to .NET Framework (i.e. classic .NET). .NET Framework is a fairly expansive set of standard libraries bundled with a runtime - it's commonly used and well-supported, and dates back to about 2001, give-or-take a beta or two. There's a lot of current and legacy applications built on this out in the wild. .NET core is effectively a do-over for the longer term in the form of a minimal set of dependencies that imports more of the standard library separately. There's a couple of reasons for doing this - primarily the parts that have been abstracted out mean that .NET core runs in a lot more places than the classic framework (including natively on devices like the Raspberry Pi, for example), and can also be (and is) fully open-source (the classic framework is mostly open-source these days as it is, but licensing problems meant that not every part of the toolchain could be opened up). There's also the question of expectations when it comes to community changes. .NET Framework was adopted in many quarters on the basis that it was developed by Microsoft directly, and bureaucratically opening it up to community changes after the fact becomes problematic due to the massive number of stakeholders and their expectations. I'm sure someone else can add more info but as I understand it this is the gist.

sevensor 8y ago
Thank you, that helps!
scarface74 8y ago
Just to confuse things even more, there is also .Net Standard. (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/09/26/introducing-net-standard/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/09/26/introduci...). .Net Framework (Windows only), .Net Core and Xamarin are all implementations of .Net Standard. To add even more confusion, ASP.Net Core can run either on .Net Core or .Net Framework.
- bargl 8y ago
  I know I've over simplified this for myself. But the way that I look at it is like so. .Net Standard is an "Interface" - No implementation behind the scenes just a list of apis. .Net Framework, .Net Core, Xamarin are all "classes" or implementations of .Net Standard. ASP.NET Core only relies on .NET standard which is implemented by both .Net Framework and .Net Core. Which means it can run on both. ASP.NET (Framework) does not rely on .Net Standard but directly links to the implementation of .Net Framework. Which means those libraries can't run anywhere and are instead limited to only .NET Framework. I'm no Jon Skeet, or tech guru. So please take this explanation with a grain of salt and if I'm wrong correct me as needed. This is just how I've wrapped my head around it.

benaadams 8y ago

For server on Windows, Linux and MacOS you'd probably sway .NET Core. For client on Windows, UWP is .NET Core, and WinForms or WPF currently .NET Framework. Though .NET Core 3.0 is meant to bring the full set of Windows UI stacks to .NET Core https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2018/08/08/are-your-windows-forms-and-wpf-applications-ready-for-net-core-3-0/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2018/08/08/are-your-... For Tizen you'd also use .NET Core For client on macOS or Linux you use Mono For games you'd probably use Unity (Mono based) For iOS, tvOS, watchOS, Solaris, Android, Solaris, IBM AIX and i, BSD (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD), PlayStation 4, XboxOne, WebAssembly you'd use Mono Can still use Mono for client on Windows and the ASP.NET Core stack is quite happy running on Mono on the server; but they have different focuses. If you were building a library you'd target the .NET Standard 2.0 "contract" and it would cover all the runtimes.

colemickens 8y ago
Hm, curious - why do you say wasm and XboxOne would lean toward mono? Doesn't Blazor target .NET Core? I would've assumed .NET Core w/ UWP would be first class citizens on XboxOne? Thanks in advance! Edit: maybe I was confused about Blazor. Looks like it can work with ASP.NET Core, but the info I'm finding talks about building with mono. I guess the more interesting question is, do you think Mono will remain important for the places you've mentioned, or will be replaced more and more by .NET Core? Especially given the UI goals with .NET Core 3 (and my own biased belief that .NET Core is the clear unabashed future of .NET).
- pionar 8y ago
  WASM (Blazor) uses the Mono runtime. > I guess the more interesting question is, do you think Mono will remain important for the places you've mentioned, or will be replaced more and more by .NET Core? Especially given the UI goals with .NET Core 3 (and my own biased belief that .NET Core is the clear unabashed future of .NET). I don't know what the future is for Mono. Mono currently has support for platforms that .NET Core doesn't specifically target - iOS, Android, native code through Unity, WASM, etc. It'll probably start to move toward specifically supporting those platforms while continuing to support newer versions of the .NET Standard. .NET Core/.NET Standard is the future of mainstream .NET. .NET Framework is dead. I've heard it from Microsoft people directly. There probably will never be a 4.9, and there will definitely never be a 5.0.

mandeepj 8y ago

This is a really great question, in fact. Normally, people go with what's available. Without connecting the dots.

manigandham 8y ago

.NET Framework was first, the major install on Windows only. Mono came after, to try and replicate .NET on non-Windows and with an open-source approach. Eventually .NET Framework code was open-sourced (at least read only in the beginning), which also helped Mono get better. .NET Core was created to take the aging .NET Framework and rebuild for a faster, easier deployment, quick release cycle, and cross-platform on Linux and Mac OS; without hurting the decades of backwards compatibility. Mono meanwhile became the base for Xamarin for mobile apps and Unity as a gaming engine. Even though Microsoft acquired Xamarin, Mono already had much uptake in both of these scenarios that it didn't make sense to attempt replacing it, so now we have Mono for mobile+games and .NET Core for the rest. .NET Framework will still be around for a decade but is effectively retired and .NET Core 3.0 will fill in any remaining gaps for Windows apps that still need the full framework today.