Article:		Miguel de Icaza Explains How to "Get" Mono
Subject:		Other language support?
Date:		2005-03-23 07:40:05
From:		Seanairt
Response to: Other language support?
I completely agree. One reason I have to date avoided Mono is because I haven't even heard a whisper in the community for supporting C++/CLI. Until Mono forms a community of active C++ developers to target the CLI, I will continue to write my software using alternative platforms.

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• Other language support?
  2005-03-25 06:34:27  rafaelteixeirabr@hotmail.com [Reply | View]
  
  
  Well,
  
  Now that gcc got a new intermediate representation that is more flexible, we think that it may be possible to have a backend targetting CLI, in that way, all fine gcc front-end including C/C++/Fortran/etc. may be able to be used to program for Mono.
  
  Also the main reason we didn't tackle the C++/CLI issue was that MS did it wrong the first time, by mixing native code with fully managed (bytecode) code, that is SIMPLY NOT PORTABLE. Now they've come with a better solution, but surely, the needed language extensions means your old code isn't readily reusable anyway.
  
  Also, as Miguel said, with Platform/Invoke (similar but much simpler to use than Java's JNI) we can call most native libraries, even in a cross-platform way if the API is preserved among native implementations of the library.
  
  So if you just want to reuse some C++ code in a new Mono-based solution it is easy.
  
  Having written and mantained some million or so lines of C/C++ code in my career I can say that I prefer C# every single day.