Thanks Jon for taking the time to respond, it's a great answer! I really just threw the question out there - I actually really appreciate the no-dependencies approach of embedding the runtime in the app. It makes updates a whole lot easier. e.g. on Windows Mobile, rolling out .NET Compact Framework patches / updates across the organisation was always a nightmare.
On 14 February 2012 13:34, Jonathan Pryor <j...@xamarin.com> wrote: > On Feb 9, 2012, at 7:39 PM, Roy Goode wrote: > > I wonder if it's possible to make the official Shared Runtime as an app > released on the Android Market as an alternative to the bundled runtime? > > <Insert maniacal laughter here> > > In theory, there's nothing [0] preventing this. In practice, we haven't > gone two releases without having some form of API/ABI break. We are working > on improving that (hopefully 4.2 will be the last release which breaks API > in an incompatible manner), but I don't hold out much hope for things being > "stable" long enough for a shared runtime package to be plausible on the > Android Market, not anytime soon. > > This isn't to say that these things aren't insurmountable. I just wouldn't > expect it anytime soon. :-) > > - Jon > > [0] except for gigantic app sizes and user complexity [1]... The > Mono.Android.DebugRuntime-debug.apk package, containing BCL + ARMv5, ARMv7, > and x86 runtimes is "only" 25MB in size. We already have requests for MIPS > support, which will make that larger still, and then there's the per-API > level Mono.Android.Platform.apk, which is another 12-16MB. Assuming the end > user only downloads apps which require a single API level, you're still > requiring that they download 37+MB just to run your app, as opposed to the > ~2+MB size that is currently required. > > [1] Then there's the user complexity side. We'd either need to have a > "bootstrap installer" embedded into apps to direct the user to the Android > Market to download the packages, or you'd need to document that they > download _three_ packages -- Runtime, Platform, and App. > > _______________________________________________ > Monodroid mailing list > Monodroid@lists.ximian.com > > UNSUBSCRIBE INFORMATION: > http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/monodroid >
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