Hi lukemb. I gather either you are one of the developers or you have a very intricate knowledge of the system in question. Regardless of the case, let us get into this for a bit shall we?
1) If what you are saying is true, as far as the low level calls are concerned, that certainly alleviates most of the porting paradigm. In fact even the word "porting" should have been used loosely here. I was unaware you could embed the mono runtime inside your app that way. I was still helping out with Midnight Commander when Miguel was talking about Mono. I guess I missed that meeting.
But I digress... having it embedded certainly will be a plus not only from the development stand point, but from the end user perspective as well. Having a pre-packaged solution ready to run is certainly a much better experience. The only thing I'd be watchful for is the linking. Whether you choose to statically or dynamically link, special attention must be paid to the initialization. That can be troublesome. Remember, Mr. Singleton is your friend. But I am sure you already know that.
2) I am sorry you got the impression this was a complaint as I was merely expressing a personal opinion based on past experiences. I do not know the inner-workings of MB nor do I pretend so. I do know however, that MB has rave reviews under Windows and seems to be well under way to achieve the same accolades under another two platforms. Being in port or native form, it is still a plus to have other choices. No one is taking that away from the great effort made with the software nor the ability of the team.
One thing is for certain, just by chiming in here, you show to be fully engaged and in tune with what is going on outside the development table. That can only spell success to the project. I look forward to give MB a run once the embedding is complete.
Cheers!
