I usually prefer to blog about my own ideas and the learning process with new technologies. But when I read this article on InfoWorld I had to write about it.

What’s Mono?

Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET Framework. The big difference between Mono and .NET is that Mono runs on Linux, Max AND Windows. The Mono Project also has an implementation of Silverlight, named Moonlight, which allows Silverlight projects to run on Linux operating systems.

So what?

Well I always thought Mono was kinda cool, but I’m strictly an ASP.NET developer everything is on the web and all of my clients run in a Windows environment. So there was never any reason for me to do anything than admire what Mono could do from afar. Something cool, but not worth the time for me.

But today I found out that using Mono opens you up to the Nintindo Wii and iPhone platforms! How? Because Mono offers static compilation – the ability to generate native code instead of IL. So you end up with the same result as if you were coding in C++ or Objective-C.

I’ve only just read the article, so I may be jumping the gun here. I’m sure there are downsides, but I would really like to write an app for my iPod Touch. But I don’t plan on learning Objective-C anytime soon, or ever. But if I could do this just by leveraging my knowledge of C# into the Mono framework and the technology stack of the iPhone, then you may be seeing a post about it sometime this year.

Anyway, if any of you are as excited about this as I am and get a head start on me, I’d love to hear about it from you.