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So Mike Harsh on the WPF/E team at Microsoft recently posted an article about WPF/E, (Windows Presentation Foundation EVERYWHERE) at the Microsoft Mix06 PR blitz...er, conference:

The WPF/E package also contains a small, cross platform subset of the CLR and .NET Framework that can run C# or VB.NET code. Yes, we are bringing C# programming to the Mac.

First of all, we've HAD C# on the Mac for quite some time now, as part of the quite-lame ROTOR, and the quite-NOT-Lame Mono, which has actual products out for it.

However, barring a change in what I've seen from Microsoft, (and given the lack of proper documentation on MSDN, lord knows what's really going on), Mike's statement needs some...clarification:

Yes, we're bringing products written in C# that use WPF/E to the Mac...sometime in 2007.

See, right now, the only way to write WPF/E code is in Visual Studio, and most likely, VS2005 on Windows. Anyone remember the last major product to use a Microsoft Cross-Platform compiler? Word 6 anyone? Okay, that's a bit unfair, I imagine that not even the Windows team is stupid enough to repeat that mistake. But the fact is, WPF/E is not bringing C# to the Mac. It will, (when it shows up) allow you to write code on Windows that can be run on a Mac. Once the browser plugin is out...sometime in the first half of 2007. Of course, the WPF/E stuff you need to even write it for various Windows platforms, like Windows Mobile, (Why do I think that WM is the real reason for WPF/E, and non-MS platform support is a side - effect? Oh wait, past experience.) won't show up until the third quarter of 2006. So, if you are expecting WPF/E applications that have been tested on the Mac in less than a year or more, you're going to be disappointed.

Unless they're from a seriously confused person who thinks that just writing WPF/E code will magically work in the plugin untested. Yeah, right.

However, Mono lets you write .Net C# code in Xcode today. Or in the IDE of your choice on Linux. Or even in VS on Windows, and you can use it today. If you want to start writing cross-platform managed code, you don't have to restrict your development environment to Windows, nor do you have to wait a year. You can do it right now for free.

Exactly how is Mike's announcement news?

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac OS X, Microsoft, Programming, Windows

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