Will Google Android ever support .NET? [closed]

Question

Update: Since I wrote this answer two years ago, we productized Mono to run on Android. The work included a few steps: porting Mono to Android, integrating it with Visual Studio, building plugins for MonoDevelop on Mac and Windows and exposing the Java Android APIs to .NET languages. This is now available at http://monodroid.net

• Getting Started: http://monodroid.net/Welcome
• Documentation: http://monodroid.net/Documentation
• Tutorials: http://monodroid.net/Tutorials

Mono on Android is based on the Mono 2.10 runtime, and defaults to 4.0 profile with the C# 4.0 compiler and uses Mono's new SGen garbage collection engine, as well as our new distributed garbage collection system that performs GC across Java and Mono.

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The links below reflect Mono on Android as of January of 2009, I have kept them for historical context

Mono now works on Android thanks to the work of Koushik Dutta and Marc Crichton.

You can see a video of it running here: http://www.koushikdutta.com/2009/01/mono-on-android-with-gratuitous-shaky.html

And you can get the instructions to build Mono yourself here: http://www.koushikdutta.com/2009/01/building-mono-for-android.html

You can get a benchmark comparing Mono's JIT vs Dalvik's interpreter here: http://www.koushikdutta.com/2009/01/dalvik-vs-mono.html

And of course, you can get a pre-configured image with Mono here (go to the bottom of the post for details on using that): http://www.koushikdutta.com/2009/01/building-mono-for-android.html

Yes, it will be possible and it won't be that difficult. All what's needed at this point to start with is some kind of converter that will turn MSIL into Dalvik bytecode. Since both formats are open-sourced and well documented, there won't be any problem with it.

So, writing Android applications in C# or VB.NET will be possible, question is how much of .NET framework standard libraries will be supported. But that's another issue.

Oscar Reyes wrote:

I'm pretty sure if google hand ANY interest in .net, they would've design something while Android was in the first stages, not now when they are in production stages. I don't mean it is not possible, what I'm saying is they're not interested. Maybe in mmm hhhh 10 yrs.

Actually what they've already designed is very compatible with Java and .NET

They can't do everything at once, but if you look into Android SDK, there is a tool called dx. This tool converts Java bytecode into Dalvik bytecode, so in other words, you can run programs written in Java on Android with no effort today. Now the same tool is needed for .NET.

Considering how similar .NET and Java are, it's really a matter of time.

ddimitrov wrote:

The .Net->Java->Dalvik translation can be done even now (http://dev.mainsoft.com/), but I think you underestimate the lack of .Net libraries. Of course somebody can port Mono, but it's definitely a non-trivial effort.

No need to port Mono. Android already has VM and some basic API. All what's needed is CIL->Dalvik converter and tiny .NET wrapper for Android API (and maybe some basic implementation of some standard .NET classes). That's it.

Update: .NET already works on Android - you will need product called Monodroid (http://monodroid.net) as stated above.

Miguel de Icaza's announced on his blog on the 17th of Feb 2010 that they are starting work on mono for android which will be called MonoDroid.

This will be similar to MonoTouch on the iphone but for android instead.

It will provide binding to the android UI, so apps will look and feel live native android apps. This will require you to write an android specific UI.

You will however be able to reuse you existing lower level libraries without the need to recompile.

There is Mono for Android, the .NET framework ported for Android. And there is MonoDroid, a development stack for using C# and the core .NET APIs to develop Android-based applications. MonoDroid Preview 1 has been released a couple of days ago.