Re: More on Mono

One of the questions in the interview was about the development process behind Mono. He gives a really good answer about not being a great fan of UML and strict development processes. They are all great hackers and just want to do it because they are having fun... enjoying it. Strict dev practices etc... limit creativity and the "art" of programming.

What dyou think of his answer? I want to learn good practices about developing software because right now we all lack any substantial experience with it. But at the same time, I read about UML, design patterns, agile development, "some new hyped up buzzword" etc... and it all just seems so "messy" or tends to complicate matters. Same feeling I have with some Java developments. I've mentioned them before. It feels a lot of over engineering.


UML is a diagrammic notation to express Software design at various stages of development. You should learn UML because it is the de-facto method for communication between dev's. So if I show you a UML Class diagram you immediately know what inherits what and methods etc.. blah blah. As I mentioned various stages of developement exist for a particular piece of software. In the initial stage a Use Case diagram is made, then Analysis diagrams, then Design diags. All these help in development.

Now there are many methodologies for developing software. The various stages I mentioned were wrt the Waterfall process (or the Unified Dev Process), which I must admit is very boring. Too much documentation and managerial in nature. But understandably in a large organisation these things become important. Other methodologies include the Agile process. Agile process includes XP development practices which seem more Developer friendly. Many methodologies or processes use UML diagrams to express artifacts (or products) at various stages of development.

So firstly you should learn UML diagrams. Reading about various Development processes is also good. You will get an idea as to how many co's work. Dinesh could probably tell us a bit about his company. Which process you apply is a different matter.

And Design Patterns is a separate issue altogether. Which book for patterns or articles have you read?? Design Patterns was the first book to talk about patterns and is simply put a Bible. I have had the book since a while and even suggested to you guys to read the book. But to be frank I have not been able to understand too many patterns. We did try to apply a few in the Object Oriented Analysis and Design Module here at Ncb. Recently I read a sample from this book from Oreilly Head First Design Patterns. Read the sample chapter. The style of the book is very different, and I really loved it. Only after you read a few design patterns do you realise how beautiful solutions to generic problems can be !!

And complications in Java is another issue. I'll talk about Java some other time. I think you have mixed too many questions in one paragraph. Read about stuff to get an idea of things. UML and Design Pattens should be high on the priority list.


Also, any opinions about Mono? From his blog sometime back - "7 out of the 20 top-rated apps on gnomefiles.org are mono apps".


Even since coming here to Ncb I have harldy booted into Gentoo, and am not aware of whats going on in the Linux world. Probably Hrishi could shed more light on the popularity of Mono apps. Personally I am very skeptical of Mono being used widely.