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First thought: Xamarin is now open source—great! Second thought: Every time I looked into Xamarin (and I do this every 6 months) there was a lack of killer app

First thought: Xamarin is now open source—great! Second thought: Every time I looked into Xamarin (and I do this every 6 months) there was a lack of killer apps created with Xamarin on both iOS and Android, users' experiences with Xamarin were either rare or negative and in total the community felt non-existent Third thought: Ok got it, they open source to get PR, build a community; I hope that helps and it's not their last resort So, is Xamarin really a viable solution?

AlwaysBCoding 10y ago
No, use React Native
- alexc05 10y ago
  That's an unhelpful answer and misleading. React native has a LOT of attention. It has a lot of support. BUT as of this writing if you are developing in corporate IT (meaning possibly running windows 7 systems) you actually CANNOT run react-native tools on windows easily. I'm currently building an ionic project because I needed a cross-plat mobile app and work with a mix of OSX and windows 7 machines. Now that said, windows 10 systems with the ubuntu emulator should be able to emulate all the calls you need to run react native on windows machines. HOWEVER windows 10 bash has not yet implemented all 350 linux system calls (https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command-prompt-console-bash-on-ubuntu-on-windo https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command-prompt-con...) and there is no guarantee that is bug free. I'd hate to be 2 months into development to find there are deep internals that block me from using a critical feature. None of this is to say Xamarin doesn't have its own baggage. The reason I web with cordova/ionic was for the good of the other developers on my team (html+css+javascript over C#) and, at the time, the additional cost of the Xamarin licenses. I would have given XAMARIN a much closer look if it were bundled with a Visual Studio license, and all things considered, if I were looking today, it might beat out React Native. That said, I do agree that react-native MAY be the way forward in the next generation, but, Xamarin does have more than enough upside to make it a reasonable contender.
  - burke_holland 10y ago
    Have you tried NativeScript on Windows?
    - alexc05 10y ago
      Haven't even heard of it! That looks really interesting. I'll add that to the list of candidates at the start of my next crossplat mobile app.
      - phaed 10y ago
        Don't bother.
  - pookeh 10y ago
    > BUT as of this writing if you are developing in corporate IT (meaning possibly running windows 7 systems) you actually CANNOT run react-native tools on windows easily. Eh? I use React Native on Windows. Works just fine. It's also very easy to install. Maybe you didn't try recently?
    - alexc05 10y ago
      Few months. But we all know a lot has happened in the last few months. The f8 conference has happened since plus all these windows announcements. Did you install on a windows 7 machine?
      - pookeh 10y ago
        Yup Windows 7.
gregmac 10y ago
> they open source to get PR, build a community; I hope that helps and it's not their last resort It's not that: Microsoft acquired Xamarin earlier this year [1]. Xamarin is also holding a conference [2] right now, so I suspect this announcement is part of that. Edit: Yes, it was. [3] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11169215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11169215 [2] https://evolve.xamarin.com/live https://evolve.xamarin.com/live [3] https://adtmag.com/articles/2016/04/27/xamarin-evolve-16.aspx https://adtmag.com/articles/2016/04/27/xamarin-evolve-16.asp...
tacos 10y ago
Couple billion dollars in revenue generated with it via Unity alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine) -- and that was a HORRIBLE version of it. Way better now.
- apayan 10y ago
  tl;dr. The success of Unity can't be used as an indicator that cross-platform frameworks are good for productivity/utility apps. Xamarin and Unity don't have anything in common, other than the fact that Unity uses C# for scripting (on an ancient runtime). Cross-platform app development frameworks are generally awful because they don't tightly integrate with the native look and feel of every platform. Video games don't even try to achieve native looks on any platforms. They're always full screen works of art, without any hint of a UIButton (iOS) or TextView (Android).
  - tacos 10y ago
    I too hate cross-platform schlockware but it sounds like you are not familiar with the technology. "controls are mapped to platform-specific native user interface elements; for example, a Xamarin.Forms Entry becomes a UITextView on iOS, an EditText on Android, and a TextBox on Windows." https://www.xamarin.com/forms https://www.xamarin.com/forms
    - apayan 10y ago
      Interesting. I was unaware that Xamarin maps widgets like that. Thanks for enlightening me. :-) How does it abstract away the more fundamental differences between platforms Activities/Fragments vs. UIViewControllers?
      - tacos 10y ago
        You win some you lose some. With Fragments Xamarin actually extends support to earlier Android devices. Less of an issue now, but there was a time when this actually extended platform reach, reduced code, and simplified training/upgrades. For some things it's about the common talk-to-the-backend code, not true-code-once across iOS/Android...

AlwaysBCoding 10y ago

No, use React Native

alexc05 10y ago
That's an unhelpful answer and misleading. React native has a LOT of attention. It has a lot of support. BUT as of this writing if you are developing in corporate IT (meaning possibly running windows 7 systems) you actually CANNOT run react-native tools on windows easily. I'm currently building an ionic project because I needed a cross-plat mobile app and work with a mix of OSX and windows 7 machines. Now that said, windows 10 systems with the ubuntu emulator should be able to emulate all the calls you need to run react native on windows machines. HOWEVER windows 10 bash has not yet implemented all 350 linux system calls (https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command-prompt-console-bash-on-ubuntu-on-windo https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command-prompt-con...) and there is no guarantee that is bug free. I'd hate to be 2 months into development to find there are deep internals that block me from using a critical feature. None of this is to say Xamarin doesn't have its own baggage. The reason I web with cordova/ionic was for the good of the other developers on my team (html+css+javascript over C#) and, at the time, the additional cost of the Xamarin licenses. I would have given XAMARIN a much closer look if it were bundled with a Visual Studio license, and all things considered, if I were looking today, it might beat out React Native. That said, I do agree that react-native MAY be the way forward in the next generation, but, Xamarin does have more than enough upside to make it a reasonable contender.
- burke_holland 10y ago
  Have you tried NativeScript on Windows?
  - alexc05 10y ago
    Haven't even heard of it! That looks really interesting. I'll add that to the list of candidates at the start of my next crossplat mobile app.
    - phaed 10y ago
      Don't bother.
- pookeh 10y ago
  > BUT as of this writing if you are developing in corporate IT (meaning possibly running windows 7 systems) you actually CANNOT run react-native tools on windows easily. Eh? I use React Native on Windows. Works just fine. It's also very easy to install. Maybe you didn't try recently?
  - alexc05 10y ago
    Few months. But we all know a lot has happened in the last few months. The f8 conference has happened since plus all these windows announcements. Did you install on a windows 7 machine?
    - pookeh 10y ago
      Yup Windows 7.

gregmac 10y ago

> they open source to get PR, build a community; I hope that helps and it's not their last resort It's not that: Microsoft acquired Xamarin earlier this year [1]. Xamarin is also holding a conference [2] right now, so I suspect this announcement is part of that. Edit: Yes, it was. [3] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11169215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11169215 [2] https://evolve.xamarin.com/live https://evolve.xamarin.com/live [3] https://adtmag.com/articles/2016/04/27/xamarin-evolve-16.aspx https://adtmag.com/articles/2016/04/27/xamarin-evolve-16.asp...

tacos 10y ago

Couple billion dollars in revenue generated with it via Unity alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine) -- and that was a HORRIBLE version of it. Way better now.

apayan 10y ago
tl;dr. The success of Unity can't be used as an indicator that cross-platform frameworks are good for productivity/utility apps. Xamarin and Unity don't have anything in common, other than the fact that Unity uses C# for scripting (on an ancient runtime). Cross-platform app development frameworks are generally awful because they don't tightly integrate with the native look and feel of every platform. Video games don't even try to achieve native looks on any platforms. They're always full screen works of art, without any hint of a UIButton (iOS) or TextView (Android).
- tacos 10y ago
  I too hate cross-platform schlockware but it sounds like you are not familiar with the technology. "controls are mapped to platform-specific native user interface elements; for example, a Xamarin.Forms Entry becomes a UITextView on iOS, an EditText on Android, and a TextBox on Windows." https://www.xamarin.com/forms https://www.xamarin.com/forms
  - apayan 10y ago
    Interesting. I was unaware that Xamarin maps widgets like that. Thanks for enlightening me. :-) How does it abstract away the more fundamental differences between platforms Activities/Fragments vs. UIViewControllers?
    - tacos 10y ago
      You win some you lose some. With Fragments Xamarin actually extends support to earlier Android devices. Less of an issue now, but there was a time when this actually extended platform reach, reduced code, and simplified training/upgrades. For some things it's about the common talk-to-the-backend code, not true-code-once across iOS/Android...