May 2011 - Posts
Original post.
As you likely know, Mono, Monotouch, and Mono for Android are in limbo right now.
Bluto:
Hey! What's all this laying around stuff? Why are you all still laying around here for?
Stork:
What the hell are we supposed to do, ya moron? We're all expelled. There's nothing to fight for anymore.
D-Day:
[to Bluto] Let it go. War's over, man. Wormer dropped the big one.
Bluto:
What? Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is!
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter:
[to Boon] Germans?
Boon:
Forget it, he's rolling.
Bluto:
And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the goin' gets tough...
[thinks hard of something to say]
Bluto:
The tough get goin'! Who's with me? Let's go!
[Bluto runs out, alone; then returns]
Bluto:
What the fuck happened to the Delta I used to know? Where's the spirit?
Where's the guts, huh? This could be the greatest night of our lives,
but you're gonna let it be the worst. "Ooh, we're afraid to go with you
Bluto, we might get in trouble." Well just kiss my ass from now on! Not
me! I'm not gonna take this. Wormer, he's a dead man! Marmalard, dead!
Niedermeyer...
Otter:
Dead! Bluto's right. Psychotic... but absolutely right. We gotta take
these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons, but that
could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go
all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile
and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part!
Bluto:
We're just the guys to do it.
D-Day:
[stands up] Yeah, I agree. Let's go get 'em.
Boon:
Let's do it.
Bluto:
[shouting] "Let's do it"!
This scene has been in the back of my mind since last Friday night when I got the call that I didn't want to hear, but I knew that it would come.
Anyway, the question now becomes what do you do? I don't have the
answers for everyone, but I have my original decision matrix that I'll
repeat here with some discussion mixed in.
- Go the "vendor
directed" native route. This means having to (re)learn Objective-C for
the iPhone and Java for Android along with XCode and Eclipse. I have
problems moving between VB and C#, how am I going to keep these two
different platforms straight in my mind? Thankfully, learning Monotouch
and Mono for Android and the fact that its a thin layer over the top of
the native APIs means that its just not that hard to move. This has
the least amount of risk, but the most amount of learning.
- Stay
the course and wait for Attachmate to improve the products. Ok, this
is an option, but I doubt it is a very good option. Attachmate doesn't seem
to care about their customers in this situation. They have had two
plus weeks to formulate a strategy to communicate with them and there
has been no communication. Can they enhance and support the products? I
don't know, but I don't think that they have the ability to do this. What about "All technology roadmaps remain intact"?
- Stay
the short course and wait on Xamarin. This would involve working with
Monotouch until Xamarin can produce a product that will allow for C# to
work with the iPhone. What about Mono for Android? I've worked with it
for a while, and it just isn't ready for prime time yet. If the
debugger had been fixed and performance had been resolved, I would feel
different. I just can't recommend Mono for Android as it exists right
now. What about the legal issues? I just don't know.
So,
what am I going to do? I'm a .NET/C# developer at this point in my
life. I'm not going to Windows Phone 7 (WP7) over this. WP7 just has
not created a lot of interest in the marketplace outside of the
Microsoft ecosystem. The general public has not bought into it. Things
might change in the future, but as of May 17, 2011, I don't see it as
an option. I'm probably going to go the "vendor directed" route until
such time as Xamarin can produce a product that allows for C# on the
iPhone and Android. At that point in time, you'll probably see our
book(s) again. Until that time, I expect my hair to be pulled out. If
you see me sporting the
Paul Glavich look, you'll know why.
Original post.
By now, its public knowledge that the Mono team has been fired by Attachmate. I know its been rumor for a couple of weeks, but I got info saying it was true. I think that this is a poor move by Attachmate. They have left their customers swinging in the wind. I feel sorry for the people that have been fired, they are first and foremost in my mind. These guys created MonoTouch and Mono for Android, which are now fully funding the entire Mono ecosystem, will land on their feet. These are smart guys. Someone will want them. They may be able to get Venture Capital to form a company and purchase the rights to all Mono products. While I think about them, I don't worry about them too much at all.
What really has me upset is that Attachmate seems to have mislead us. They have mislead the community as a whole, their customers specifically, and me! Specifically, Jeff Hawn, CEO of The Attachmate Group, made the following statement:
"We have re-established Nuremburg as the headquarters of our SUSE business unit and the prioritization and resourcing of certain development efforts - including Mono - will now be determined by the business unit leaders there," said Jeff Hawn, Chairman and CEO of The Attachmate Group in a statement sent to InternetNews.com. "This change led to the release of some US based employees today. As previously stated, all technology roadmaps remain intact with resources being added to those in a manner commensurate with customer demand."
Now, I don't know what he means by "all technology roadmaps remain intact", but it looks to me like they have gutted Mono. How you can fire all US and Canada Mono developers and keep all technology roadmaps intact, I have no idea? Does Attachmate have their own set of mono developers ready to go on this? The above just seems to be a very misleading statement. Attachmate seems to have nothing, nada, zilch.
Let me tell you why its such a big deal to me:
Books. This basically makes me question if there is any value in the 2 books that I have already published on MonoTouch. We've put our Mono for Android book on hold.
Training. I have had two agreements so far to provide training for developers on MonoTouch and Mono for Android. I've been talking with other members of the community about expanding this out. All of this is on hold.
Consulting. SDI has been contacted a number of times over the past few weeks about consulting on MonoTouch and Mono for Android projects. I think we'd get a couple of them.
Startup. I've been looking at a startup for a while now. I built all the examples on MonoTouch and Mono for Android.
Add this up, and you can guess how I feel right now. I definitely feel mislead by someone. I think its Attachmate. They appear to have mislead the community.
Now, the next question is what am I planning on doing? I still think that iPhone and Android are the winners in the current marketplace. Windows Phone 7 is still a huge bet on the future. This is my decision "tree":
Listen to what Miguel and Joe Hill have to say. I think the heart of the Mono community will do this. Miguel is Mono. He is the heart and soul of the product.
Listen to what Attachmate says. I'd like to know what they have to say. Can they do something to work with the "former" Mono team? How are they going to satisfy their customers going forward.
Review all of my options for iPhone and Android development. Maybe ObjectiveC and Java are the right ways to go. Maybe I should do PhoneGap and Appcelerator. Maybe I should look at something else.
Anyway, thanks to Attachmate.
And with the upload to my editor at
Wiley/Wrox, the book known as
"Professional Android Programming with Mono for Android and .NET/C#"
is now Author Review Complete, barring any slip ups on my part. Its
always a great feeling to get these things done. A real load off of my
shoulders.
The genesis of this book has been really interesting. It started while we were still writing our "Professional iPhone Programming with MonoTouch"
book. We started talking about this due to the Apple self FUD starting
last April. Watching the number of Android devices sold go up each
quarter also helped me make the decision to go forward. Martin Bowling
started as the lead author. Unfortunately, he had family issues and had
to drop off during the planning stages. The other authors that joined
me on this were Nathan Blevins, Jon Dick, Chris Hardy, and John Croft.
Here is some info from the Amazon web site about our book:
The wait is over! For the millions of .NET/C# developers who have
been eagerly awaiting the book that will guide them through the
white-hot field of Android application programming, this is the book. As
the first guide to focus on Mono for Android, this must-have resource
dives into writing applications against Mono with C# and compiling
executables that run on the Android family of devices.
Putting the
proven Wrox Professional format into practice, the authors provide you
with the knowledge you need to become a successful Android application
developer without having to learn another programming language. You'll
explore screen controls, UI development, tables and layouts, and
MonoDevelop as you become adept at developing Android applications with
Mono for Android.
- Answers the demand for a detailed book on the extraordinarily popular field of Android application development
- Strengthens
your existing skills of writing applications and shows you how to
transfer your talents to building Android apps with Mono for Android and
.NET/C#
- Dives into working with data, REST, SOAP, XML, and JSON
- Discusses how to communicate with other applications, deploy apps, and even make money in the process
Professional Android Programming with Mono for Android and .NET/C# gets you up and running with Android app development today.
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