Hi,
I wrote a nice reply to this on my phone whilst bored on the bus, but then it failed to send, somehow managing to get a 404 error. :( Thanks google!
Stephen Bain wrote:
On Feb 7, 2008 12:00 AM, Osama KM osamak.wfm@gmail.com wrote:
If C# works will with Linux, I think that Linux is easy enough. Read Huji viewing..
IIRC, things like communication over the web (in this context, things like making API queries to the live sites, etc) are much better in .NET 2.0, which Mono is not so good at yet. I haven't checked whether the web libraries are supported in Mono in a while though, so there could be better support added since then.
Sys.Web 2.0 in Mono is fully (as far as I can see, having written several .NET based bots) supported. The only Web problem at the moment is that the WebBrowser control hasn't yet been implemented into Sys.Win.Forms on Mono, but that doesn't affect toolserver use at all (that control is used in GUIs).
The only problem with Mono on the toolserver is an apparent lack of some DLLs in the GAC. Working versions of these modules are distributed by the Mono project, so I think it would be very worthwile for a sysadmin to put them in place (a workaround at the moment is to drag the DLLs out of your local Mono installation and upload them to the toolserver in the same directory as your executable).
Having noted that Mono is good for anything except Web GUIs, I'd say that the current toolserver is suitable for purpose given that most .NET bots other than AWB and the like are console based. The most valid use for a Windows toolserver would simply be for AWB, but my feeling is that program is best run from a local system (partially because it does like RAM (but getting better!)). Where the speed of the toolserver's connection is desirable, pywikipedia is just as good, if not better, than AWB for rapid editing.
Overall, I don't think there's a great enough neccessity to make the outlay for a new system with Windows.
Thanks,
Martin