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Since I'm just starting to learn it, does anyone have opinions or tips around Xamarin? Specifically I'm building a toy Android app to learn the stack, but I'm c

Since I'm just starting to learn it, does anyone have opinions or tips around Xamarin? Specifically I'm building a toy Android app to learn the stack, but I'm curious as to just how much reusability there really is between Android/iOS and other platforms.

yulaow 10y ago
You must know how the UI work in both oses if you want to be capable of using xamarin efficently. Yeah, there is XamarinForms that tries to solve that problem, but it is very... bad, right now.
- magnumkarter 10y ago
  Anyone who is serious about cross platform mobile development, whether it be Xamarin or React, needs to be well versed in Cocoa and the Android SDK.
  - rpgmaker 10y ago
    > Anyone who is serious about cross platform mobile development, whether it be Xamarin or React, needs to be well versed in Cocoa and the Android SDK. Then why would I go the Xamarin route in the first place? The whole point is to avoid having to learn both platforms. Personally, I'd rather struggle with two native codebases than to struggle learning an imperfect abstraction that still requires me to learn both platforms.
    - jon-wood 10y ago
      For me the point is being able to reuse the core code, in this case the logic of a small game, but it could be API integration just as easily. So far the C# abstraction of Android has if anything been easier to use than the official Java API, or at the very least less verbose.
- hart_russell 10y ago
  Xamarin forms is good for very limited uses. They give the basic layouts that each platform supports and that's about it. So if your app is simple, it's a great option.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
hart_russell 10y ago
If you're going to make a shared backend between Android, iOS, or other platforms Xamarin supports, I highly suggest using MvvmCross to guide the structure of your project. I've worked on a project with a custom backend and it was a monster of a codebase that I never was able to fully understand. However, if it's mostly just UI and little backend, do your own backend, because MvvmCross would introduce unneeded overhead. Let me know if you have any other questions.
- cptskippy 10y ago
  We maintain a large app using MVVMCross, it was originally using Forms in the PoC but had to be rewritten because of a number of issues. Off the top of my head I remember there were a lot of UI issues, binding to native modules was next to impossible in some cases, and it was buggy and unstable for complex interaction.

yulaow 10y ago

You must know how the UI work in both oses if you want to be capable of using xamarin efficently. Yeah, there is XamarinForms that tries to solve that problem, but it is very... bad, right now.

magnumkarter 10y ago
Anyone who is serious about cross platform mobile development, whether it be Xamarin or React, needs to be well versed in Cocoa and the Android SDK.
- rpgmaker 10y ago
  > Anyone who is serious about cross platform mobile development, whether it be Xamarin or React, needs to be well versed in Cocoa and the Android SDK. Then why would I go the Xamarin route in the first place? The whole point is to avoid having to learn both platforms. Personally, I'd rather struggle with two native codebases than to struggle learning an imperfect abstraction that still requires me to learn both platforms.
  - jon-wood 10y ago
    For me the point is being able to reuse the core code, in this case the logic of a small game, but it could be API integration just as easily. So far the C# abstraction of Android has if anything been easier to use than the official Java API, or at the very least less verbose.
hart_russell 10y ago
Xamarin forms is good for very limited uses. They give the basic layouts that each platform supports and that's about it. So if your app is simple, it's a great option.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

hart_russell 10y ago

If you're going to make a shared backend between Android, iOS, or other platforms Xamarin supports, I highly suggest using MvvmCross to guide the structure of your project. I've worked on a project with a custom backend and it was a monster of a codebase that I never was able to fully understand. However, if it's mostly just UI and little backend, do your own backend, because MvvmCross would introduce unneeded overhead. Let me know if you have any other questions.

cptskippy 10y ago
We maintain a large app using MVVMCross, it was originally using Forms in the PoC but had to be rewritten because of a number of issues. Off the top of my head I remember there were a lot of UI issues, binding to native modules was next to impossible in some cases, and it was buggy and unstable for complex interaction.