ASP.NET MVC, MonoDevelop and Windows [closed]

Question

According to Miguel de Icaza posts (here and here) and Lluis Sanchez Gual post (here and here) MonoDevelop for Windows will be ready soon. Personally I'm very interesed in using MonoDevelop under Windows for developing open source projects for ASP.NET MVC. Yes, it's better to work in MonoDevelop under Linux but for many reasons I can not simply stop using Windows (IIS7 is one of these reasons - today it is much better for ASP.NET than XSP).

Question N1: Would somebody ever try developing something in ASP.NET MVC using MonoDevelop on Windows when it will be released?

Question N2: Are there any advantages in using MonoDevelop on Windows as opposed to Visual Web Developer Express 2008?

Question N3: Both IDE (MonoDevelop and VWD Express) are free, but which is actually preferable/better for open source developing and why (it is very interesting for me)?

EDITED:

Yes, I am using full Visual Studio 2008 Pro and it's a great IDE. But it can not be used for open source developing - I think it is nonsense. I've actually paid for it - but I can't expect it from users of my library. So I can choose only Mono Develop or VWD Express? (see Question N3)

Thanks

Answer 1

N1: I tried MVC on mono-develop in Linux and that worked.

N2: There are both advantages and disadvantages. I use visual studio pro and I don't exactly know what's different in Mono-develop. I know there are some features available in mono-develop that are available in visual studio with plugins only, not in the express version.

N3: I think personal preference will decide what's better for you. I think the easiest way to find out is to download the Mono Vmware image and try it. You might have to update the mono-develop packages to use the MVC features of mono-develop. You can use the vmware image with the free version of vmware. Personally I prefer Visual Studio pro because I'm used to it and I'm addicted to resharper.

Answer 2

N1: I'm sure there will be plenty of folks that will try out MonoDevelop for ASP.NET MVC.

N2: If you're focusing more on a cross platform experience with your application, I would say MonoDeveop is the way to go since your apps written in MonoDevelop are sure to run on Mono. If you use Visual Web Developer Express, you're still going to need to run MOMA or some other compatibility checking application to make sure that there has been any Mono incompatible libraries/methods injected into the architecture.

N3: That's a hard call to make. I haven't tried out MonoDevelop yet, so I think it would depend on the developer experience between each IDE and see which one weighs heavier: the compatibility ease (see N2), or the development ease, and simply dealing with the compatibility testing/porting.

Answer 3

VisStud is so much better than MonoDevelop with all of the auto-* stuff. But there is danger in not understanding what the stud generates. My choice is to use VisStud to develop in and port to Mono periodically.

Answer 4

N1: I have not used MVC so I can't anything abt it yet.
N2: MonoDevelop is like pro edition of VS, but it doesn't have good designer. But lacks some important features like reports.
N3: For web my preference will be VWD but for other stuff I'll prefer MonoDevelop and SharpDevelop