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Xamarin acquires RoboVM
- giancarlostoro 11y agoI never really looked at RoboVM, would anyone whose used it care to weigh in on the positives and negatives of RoboVM?
- duaneb 11y agoIt has limitations on runtime introspection and modification, but once you learn them, you can use idiomatic java and/or scala. That said, the limitations make it difficult to easily port.
- badlogic 11y agoThe only limitation is the lack of runtime byte code genration. Reflection and proxies work as intended.
- johncolanduoni 11y agoOne big positive is that it uses the same class libraries as Android, so if you're already targeting Android and not using runtime code generation, you don't have to port any of your non-UI code.
- crudbug 11y agoKudos to the Xamarin management for this strategic move. (CIL BYTECODE / JVM BYTECODE) => LLVM => NATIVE
- duaneb 11y agoHow easy would it be for a competitor to use their code? It seems to me to be difficult given Xamarin's positive reputation, but are there any legal or technical barriers for a competitor to offer support, patches, etc., and contribute upstream?
- jbigelow76 11y agoInteresting business move. Since it appears the plan is to get RoboVM customers to use Xamarin Insights and Xamarin Test Cloud does that mean that Xamarin's original product of C#/XAML to native iOS and Android dev environment is going to come to be seen as the razor to the services metaphorical blades if you will?
- seibelj 11y agoRoboVM has been free for libgdx users. Xanarin is disliked by independent developers for its pricing structure. Will RoboVM remain free to use? I hope so
- jsmith0295 11y agoSome components are open source. So as long as you don't need the Interface Builder or Eclipse/IntelliJ support, it'll still be free. They did raise prices though.
- johncolanduoni 11y agoThis is no longer true going forward. You must pay to use the newer versions at all; the RoboVM github repository hasn't been updated since early September and will no longer be developed.
- iso8859-1 11y ago"If you haven’t already, please make sure to start your 30 day free trial of RoboVM to get a license key which now is required in order to use RoboVM." https://robovm.com/robovm-1-9-released/ https://robovm.com/robovm-1-9-released/
- jstedfast 11y agoThe open source version remains on their GitHub page here: https://github.com/robovm/robovm https://github.com/robovm/robovm
- coldtea 11y ago>Xanarin is disliked by independent developers for its pricing structure. Define "independent developers". Because a lot of them do use Xamarin.
- shadowmint 11y agoRead https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7954406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7954406 if you like. A lot of people are vocal about the price, use it or not; you can't pretend it's not true.
- jsmith0295 11y agoAnd they've already raised the prices. Edit: Actually, they've just changed their "startup" pricing and it isn't publicly available anymore. It might actually be better, if they allow you to have more than 3 devs.
- throwaway_xgqtr 11y agoMore importantly, they've removed IntelliJ and Eclipse integration from the Solo/Indie plan to match Xamarin keeping Visual Studio integration out of their Indie plan.
- jsmith0295 11y agoExactly. However, it looks like their IntelliJ based IDE is still included in Solo, which I missed initially because they put it at the top of the chart. That's a considerable improvement over MonoDevelop
- needusername 11y agoIsn't RoboVM in the same place license wise as Android? Start with loosely defined subset of Java. Transform to something that isn't Java byte code and doesn't adhere to the Java VM specification. Doesn't pass the TCK and never will. Up until now RoboVM has been featured frequently by Oracle in an attempt to mask their weakness in the mobile space (since Oracle doesn't acknowledge Android). I wonder how quickly this will stop.