Parrot - 100% Gnu.NET ?

[Clemens Eisserer]

Hi there!

Iīm a java programmer and Iīm not really experienced with perl.

But  Iīve searched a long time for a system like .NET that canīt be 
controlled by Microsoft through Patents.
Imagine 10.000 apps need the .NET api ruuning on mono, and microsoft 
permits cloning the .NET api.
Maybe 5000 of these 10.000 apps are unmaintained, and even using these 
apps with an older version of mono would not  be legal.
The other 5.000 will need weeks to create a patent-free version of there 
software, till MS finds another point which could be destroyed using 
patents.
And, after the fist change Mono wont be compatinble to .NET at all, so 
why dont create a patent-free .NET from the beginning.
I searched a long time for such a project, and after all I found it 
where I never expected it: Perl ;-)

I really like languages which are deployed compiled to bytecode, no 
problems with ABI-changes or with compiliers, once compiled link everywhere.
Thats the reason why I linke Java really much, but there are some 
points, which are really showstoppers: *Java isnt free, *Swing is toooo 
slow to be useful.

In my opinion runtimes only make sence when they dont need to rely on 
native code.
It doesnt make sence that parrot is platform independent and I need to 
"link" against native libraries through bindings, because perlīs 
"classpath" lacks e.g. GUI functionality.
Mono solves this problem like Java - they just include every class which 
could be useful. Maybe this design is to heavyweight....

Hmm, I talked a too long time to myself, I know ;-)

So, heres my question:

I think  that parrot could be the Gnu-version of .NET and could be a 
realy benefit for the whole opensource-world.  No 20 runtimes need to be 
installed on a system - parrot would do the job better than each could 
alone (Because if many apps rely on parrot the JIT will be tuned by guys 
from IBM ;-) ).
But in my opinion parrot needs a more complete "classpath" that perl5 
currently has.

Parrot is another level like perl5, perl5 was fine for scripting and 
even bigger apps worked great, bt it never tried to be a complete 
framework for many languages.
Parrot is in my eyes a way to go away from C to higher level languages.

So, my question: Is it planned to include a complete classpath into 
parrot, including gui, network, db, sound functionality or will it have 
only the "really needed" things like perl5 had?
I know that everything is already available for perl5 installing 
bindings, but in my eyes this doesnt solve the problem.
Many users dont want to install seperat libraries, they simply want to 
use parrot based apps with nice frontends, etc.

I hope I didnt make you angry, and please dont missunderstand me, I 
think what you do is great!

Please let me know what you think about the idea to include a "complete" 
classpath into parrot.....

lg Clemens