.Net wrappers are missing about protobuf HOT 11 CLOSED

Yep, several people have discussed this on the discussion group.  See, for 
example:

http://groups.google.com/group/protobuf/browse_thread/thread/aefffadcae5fa897/85
438d0
3c384d6b1

Jon Skeet (a participant in that thread) has started work on a C# 
implementation.  
You should talk to him if you're interested in helping.

I'm closing this issue because I think it's too big for this issue list.  The 
C# 
implementation will probably become its own project, with its own issue list...

I decided the right thing to do is to mark this issue "started" and assign it 
to Jon.  
Except I'm not sure what Jon's username is so I'll have to ask him to accept 
this.

Thanks for that, maybe we get a little more attention.

Yup, that's fine. I'll add occasional comments here to indicate progress.

So far I've:
o Added a copy of the Java files, renamed to csharp/csharp_*
o Added a command-line option to use the C# compiler
o Added descriptor options
o Changed them to write .cs files
o Changed the basic declarations (namespace instead of package etc)
o Begun to use properties instead of get/set

Initial (very incomplete; can't even remember if it compiles at the latest 
push) code
in git:
http://github.com/jskeet/dotnet-protobufs/tree/master

On a protobuf wiki page, it says, that there are 3 (!) .Net implementations, 
namely:

 C#: http://github.com/jskeet/dotnet-protobufs/tree/master
 C#: http://code.google.com/p/protosharp/
 C#/.NET/WCF: http://code.google.com/p/protobuf-net/ 

I think you guys should find each other and maybe the development would be a 
little
more faster. What do you think?

We know about each other already :)

My porting progress wouldn't really be helped by other people contributing at 
the
moment, beyond the sort of patch that Miguel de Icaza has contributed to get it
building easily on Mono. (Note to self: I need to update Makefile.am with new 
files...)

The other implementations are (I believe) quite similar in look and feel - I 
expect
they may well merge at some point. In the early stages, however, it's quite 
nice to
have independent coding - it makes it easier to experiment with different 
ideas. When
things settle down a bit more collaboration will be more appropriate. There's 
already
collaboration in terms of *ideas* via the group, just not a lot of 
*implementation*
sharing - yet.

This has been fixed for a long time.

Does this mean that there are no plans for the C# adapter to be merged into the
central Protobuf project?

It has been discussed at various times and we haven't made a firm decision.  
There
are a lot of complicated issues (mostly development-process-oriented, not 
technical)
that need to be considered.