Yes, you're right: the corlib interfaces are standardized. However the _internal_ interface between corlib and the runtime is not, and this is where the incompatibility lies.
Corlib needs to do stuff that cannot be written in c#, eg. creating/reflecting types, IO, threading, GC, etc... The functions for doing these are native (C for mono, C++ for MS) functions exported by the runtime. In mono they are referred to as 'icall's (see mono/mono/metadata/icall.c) and they are runtime-specific.
I believe that the only Mono DLL that uses internal calls is corlib.dll. However many of the Microsoft DLLs also use their own internal calls exported from the MS runtime. This means that although, in theory and for example, you can use Mono's System.XML.DLL on the MS runtime, you cannot use MS's version on Mono.
Piers.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bvv [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 7:50 AM
> To: Piers Haken; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: RE: [Mono-list] Microsoft's compiler with mono's
> corlib! - Issues!
>
>
> Hi Piers,
>
> Could you explain what this tight coupling is?
> I was thinking that since all mscorlib class interfaces are part
> of the ECMA standard it doesn't matter how you implement them as
> long as you provide all the necessary classes as per the spec. In
> which case i should ideally be able to mix & match the corlibs
> between different .Net runtimes.
>
> Correct me if i'm wrong please
>
> Thanks
>
> On Sun, 29 Dec 2002 Piers Haken wrote :
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: bvv [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > > Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2002 6:41 AM
> > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > Subject: [Mono-list] Microsoft's compiler with mono's
> >corlib!
> > > - Issues!
> > >
> > >
> > > Tried to compile and run a helloworld written in C# using the
> >MS
> > > compiler but mono's corlib.
> >
> >
> >You cannot do this. The corlibs and runtimes are very tightly
> >bound. You
> >cannot mix & match.
> >
> >Piers.
>
>
>
