| I’ve been involved in the information technology industry for more than 18 years, and I’ve seen many technologies come and go. However, having tackled and survived various approaches to systems architecture and the multitude of language and technologies that are out there, nothing excites me more than .NET and open source. Therefore, when I had the opportunity to develop and write a book based on a combination of these topics in the form of Mono and Linux, how could I say no? However, I couldn’t have done it without the unrelenting support of my wife, Rachel, and the less than helpful support of my nine-month-old son, Oliver. I’d also like to say a big thank you to everyone at Apress, especially Jason and Marcus for their constructive criticism during reviews and Pat and Kim for their help in ensuring the project went to press on time. I hope you enjoy the book.
Ever since the .NET initiative launched in January 2000 and the Visual Studio .NET beta subsequently launched in October 2000, the .NET train has been gaining speed; it now is the number-one development platform for the Windows operating system. However, you may have noticed a key point in that statement: for the Windows operating system! Yes, you guessed it: Microsoft targeted the .NET technology suite at the Windows operating system only; therefore, at the time of its launch, .NET was not available on other platforms such as Unix, Mac OS X, or Linux. This is not surprising, as Microsoft develops the Windows operating system and doesn’t want to invest time in creating versions for competing operating systems; however, in the corporate world, other operating systems exist and for good reasons. |