Is mono the only route , any specific visual studio like editors that you recommend?
+1
A:
Mono is pretty much your only route right now, though there are incessant rumours (I wouldn't give much thought to them, though) that Microsoft is planning to port C# to Mac in the future. I'd be very surprised if that happened, though.
As for IDEs, I can't help there... If I want C#, I stick to Visual Studio (run it through Parallels or BootCamp, if you really want to use VS).
Edit: As Graham points out, there is Cocoa#, but I'd caution that simply because the project has stalled, and there's unlikely to be much future for it. :(
James Burgess
2009-01-10 20:17:02
I agree those are just rumors. Best case scenario is that Microsoft will work more with Miguel to improve Mono, but that isn't necessarily likely either.
BobbyShaftoe
2009-01-10 20:18:27
True... they seem to go through "phases" of wanting to help out with Mono, and not wanting to help out with Mono. I prefer it when they're going through the former phase :)
James Burgess
2009-01-10 20:20:10
+4
A:
Yeah, mono is really your only option, unless some undergrad somewhere has developed some very experimental thing I don't know about. As for an IDE, well I believe the only thing half way stable that will work right now on Mac OS X is Monodevelop:
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2008/Feb-07-2.html
I mean, you could run Parallels and develop your code on a Windows VM with Visual Studio and as long as you follow certain guidelines about portability, you could use VS to develop your mono apps. Although, you probably might as well get familiar with Monodevelop. It would be interesting to see if SharpDevelop ever gets ported.
BobbyShaftoe
2009-01-10 20:17:33
A:
I had a go with Mono and Cocoa#, there are some good tutorials at: http://www.cocoa-sharp.com/
As far as editors go, I ditched MonoDevelop as suffering from the "cross platform == not quite native on any platform" UI syndrome, and just used $EDITOR and make to compile the projects.
Graham Lee
2009-01-10 20:17:44
http://www.cocoa-sharp.com/ is not active anymore. Domain is for sale now.
splattne
2010-05-01 07:24:37
+1
A:
Well, you could also try Silverlight...
Pro:
- It is an official Microsoft implementation, so it is more likely to work
- Its support for recent stuff like C# 3.0 is much better
Con:
- It is browser-only, Silverlight apps do not run standalone
- You won't get the whole .NET Class Library, only a subset, so it is somewhat limited
- You won't get Visual Studio on a Mac
For IDE, I suggest Eclipse Tools for Microsoft Silverlight (apparently it is Windows-only at the moment) you should use MonoDevelop or SharpDevelop or something like that.
DrJokepu
2009-01-10 20:21:37
+1
A:
I would go the virtualization route, either Parallels or VMware Fusion. Both will run Windows XP and Visual Studio very well on a modern Mac. Windows has the best tools for .NET and C# development and it only makes to use them, especially when you're just starting out.
Marc Charbonneau
2009-01-10 20:25:27
+5
A:
Without meaning to state the obvious and miss the point, if you mean a Mac computer rather than a Mac OS, you could install bootcamp or use parallels to run windows on the Mac and then use Visual Studio (there are also free versions of Visual Studio)
Christopher Edwards
2009-01-10 20:26:16
A:
Virtual Box is my new favorite and open source (means free) VM software, don't pay for Parelles, also with bootcamp, you have to reboot the machine to go between Win and OSX, so Virtual Box is the way to go.
jonathan
2010-04-06 18:08:33