Platform independent development with .NET

We develop most of our projects as platform independent applications, usually running under Windows, Mac and Linux. There are exceptions, for example when it is required to communicate with special hardware drivers or third-party libraries or other components that are not available on all platforms. But even then we isolate these parts into interchangeable modules that can be operated either in a simulated mode or with the real thing. The simulated modes are platform independent. Developers usually can work on the code base using their favorite operating system. Of course, it has to be tested on the target platform(s) that the application will run on in the end.

Platform independent development is both a matter of technology choices and programming practices. Concerning the technology the ecosystem based on the Java VM is a proven choice for platform independent development. We have developed many projects in Java and other JVM based languages. All of our developers are polyglots and we are able to develop software with a wide variety of programming languages.

The .NET ecosystem

Until recently the .NET platform has been known to be mainly a Microsoft Windows based ecosystem. The Mono project was started by non-Microsoft developers to provide an open source implementation of .NET for other operating systems, but it never had the same status as Microsoft’s official .NET on Windows.

However, recently Microsoft has changed course: They open sourced their .NET implementation and are porting it to other platforms. They acquired Xamarin, the company behind the Mono project, and they are releasing developer tools such as IDEs for non-Windows platforms.

IDEs for non-Windows platforms

If you want to develop a .NET project on a platform other than Windows you now have several choices for an IDE:

• Xamarin Studio on Windows and Mac or MonoDevelop on Linux.
• Microsoft Visual Studio for Mac. This is based on Xamarin Studio and currently has the status of a preview version.
• JetBrains Rider (EAP) on Windows, Mac and Linux.
• Microsoft Visual Studio Code for Windows, Mac and Linux. This is actually more a powerful programmer editor than a full IDE.

I am currently using JetBrains Rider on a Mac to develop a .NET based application in C#. Since I have used other JetBrains products before it feels very familiar. Xamarin Studio, MonoDevelop, VS for Mac and JetBrains Rider all support the solution and project file format of the original Visual Studio for Windows. This means a .NET project can be developed with any of these IDEs.

Web applications

The .NET application I am developing is based on Web technologies. The server side uses the NancyFX web framework, the client side uses React. Persistence is done with Microsoft’s Entity Framework. All the libraries I need for the project like NancyFX, the Entity Framework, a PostgreSQL driver, JSON.NET, NLog, NUnit, etc. work on non-Windows platforms without any problems.

Conclusion

Development of .NET applications is no longer limited to the Windows platform. Microsoft is actively opening up their development platform for other operating systems.