"The JIT is now "self-hosting on Linux ... It can
pretty much run anything we throw at it," Miguel said, happy to be
free of relying on Microsoft's C# (pronounced c sharp) compiler.
JIT allows him to work on Unix instead of having to switch to
Windows for compiling. He said he can't release performance data
comparing Mono's JIT engine to Microsoft's JIT, but does admit that
Mono's is slower.
Miguel said that before his company works on optimizing
performance, it will focus on making the compiler feature complete.
Then, the next two features Ximian will address are security
infrastructure and garbage collection.
Why is Ximian interested? Miguel said Mono will not only help
the company internally, but could also help it land new clients.
Mono will give the company a stronger platform for developing
commercial applications, and if more developers move to Linux as
their primary working environment, that increases the number of
potential clients for Ximian's software support and services
business.
Mono's next major milestone will be to have smart clients
running on Linux by June 2002, Miguel said. He is optimistic that
there will be Windows Forms applications developed on Windows
running on Linux by this summer."
