4 ms·

Microsoft invests heavily in Xamarin, but I haven't seen an amazing cross platform app written in it yet, even though it's four years older than React Native.

by lev99 9y ago

Microsoft invests heavily in Xamarin, but I haven't seen an amazing cross platform app written in it yet, even though it's four years older than React Native. React Native is really good, but I wounder how many developers will be able to move from OOP or Web development to Declarative Programming. I think we'll continue to see a lot of Kotlin and Swift developers for the next decade, as both languages are still attracting many new developers. Android and iOS have been playing nicely with the compatibility layer, but could potential break it if they begin to lose control of the market place. Developing in React Native, while having lower costs, is still more risky than having two native development teams.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Microsoft feels like it always is moving towards a grand unifying vision, but it is always taking longer than you'd expect. Xamarin is still one of many heads of the great .NET hydra. Microsoft's been making big strides to tame them all under .NET Standard, but there's still plenty of work to go.
- lev99 9y ago
  imo Microsoft has a problem of trying to force technology when it just isn't elegant engineering. Unifying .NET is both an engineer's fool's errand and one of the most obvious things things they can do to improve their business. I was writing some dotnet core 2.0 code the other day and was shocked to find it was missing an officially supported odbc as well as many of the System.Data classes that use to be a big workhorse for developers. .NET has serious problems. Microsoft invested in other technologies that were obviously doomed from an outsider's perspective for far longer than they should. Windows phone and Bing being the two biggest and most obvious stubborn failures.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Bing is hardly a failure, nearly every search engine that isn't Google has switched to it as a data source, and it's market share is growing. Bing's at a third of US search (according to Microsoft, at least): https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/bing-is-bigger-than-you-think-microsoft-boasts-at-33-of-us-searches/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/bing-is-bigger-than-... A lot of companies now compete with Google in one or several markets, and being forced to include Google Search would be fairly painful for a lot of them, so Bing tends to be an immediate contender for anyone who isn't Google trying to integrate search capabilities. Obviously, a fair segment of their market share is just "Bing is default on Edge/IE, and Edge/IE is default on Windows" as well.
    - lev99 9y ago
      8.06% of market share isn't exactly a failure, but I suspect it loses money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_search_engine#Market_share https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_search_engine#Market_share
      - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
        Baidu is pretty much limited to a single country, mind you. And Yahoo uses Bing data, and almost certainly pays Microsoft for it. Microsoft almost certainly spends a lot less money on Bing than Google spends on Google Search, there's a good chance that Microsoft's spending per search query is lower than Google's. Bear in mind, being "good enough" costs significantly less than being "the best". Also, Microsoft announced that Bing started being profitable in 2015, and they've grown since: http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-bing-search-business-finally-is-profitable/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-bing-search-business...
        lev99 9y ago
        Consider my view on bing changed.
    - vbezhenar 9y ago
      I hate being depended on Google and I tried hard to break its chains. I can't. Neither ddg, nor Bing, nor Yandex are anywhere close to Google search quality. I'm periodically trying them, but it seems like Google is light years ahead. And using Google Search is as integral to my work as using IDE, so switching to something like Bing is the same like switching to Notepad.
      - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
        I haven't used Google in years. Haven't had an issue that Bing couldn't find that Google could. FWIW, you can use Startpage to get Google results without feeding the beast, or use the !g command when searching with DDG to get Google results.
pjmlp 9y ago
You probably haven't seen one, because most of them are enterprise apps used by the employees, not something for the regular user.
PedroBatista 9y ago
They are selling it to B2B devs. No flashy things but a lot of boiled goose.

by lev99 9y ago

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

Microsoft feels like it always is moving towards a grand unifying vision, but it is always taking longer than you'd expect. Xamarin is still one of many heads of the great .NET hydra. Microsoft's been making big strides to tame them all under .NET Standard, but there's still plenty of work to go.

lev99 9y ago
imo Microsoft has a problem of trying to force technology when it just isn't elegant engineering. Unifying .NET is both an engineer's fool's errand and one of the most obvious things things they can do to improve their business. I was writing some dotnet core 2.0 code the other day and was shocked to find it was missing an officially supported odbc as well as many of the System.Data classes that use to be a big workhorse for developers. .NET has serious problems. Microsoft invested in other technologies that were obviously doomed from an outsider's perspective for far longer than they should. Windows phone and Bing being the two biggest and most obvious stubborn failures.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Bing is hardly a failure, nearly every search engine that isn't Google has switched to it as a data source, and it's market share is growing. Bing's at a third of US search (according to Microsoft, at least): https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/bing-is-bigger-than-you-think-microsoft-boasts-at-33-of-us-searches/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/bing-is-bigger-than-... A lot of companies now compete with Google in one or several markets, and being forced to include Google Search would be fairly painful for a lot of them, so Bing tends to be an immediate contender for anyone who isn't Google trying to integrate search capabilities. Obviously, a fair segment of their market share is just "Bing is default on Edge/IE, and Edge/IE is default on Windows" as well.
  - lev99 9y ago
    8.06% of market share isn't exactly a failure, but I suspect it loses money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_search_engine#Market_share https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_search_engine#Market_share
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      Baidu is pretty much limited to a single country, mind you. And Yahoo uses Bing data, and almost certainly pays Microsoft for it. Microsoft almost certainly spends a lot less money on Bing than Google spends on Google Search, there's a good chance that Microsoft's spending per search query is lower than Google's. Bear in mind, being "good enough" costs significantly less than being "the best". Also, Microsoft announced that Bing started being profitable in 2015, and they've grown since: http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-bing-search-business-finally-is-profitable/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-bing-search-business...
      - lev99 9y ago
        Consider my view on bing changed.
  - vbezhenar 9y ago
    I hate being depended on Google and I tried hard to break its chains. I can't. Neither ddg, nor Bing, nor Yandex are anywhere close to Google search quality. I'm periodically trying them, but it seems like Google is light years ahead. And using Google Search is as integral to my work as using IDE, so switching to something like Bing is the same like switching to Notepad.
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      I haven't used Google in years. Haven't had an issue that Bing couldn't find that Google could. FWIW, you can use Startpage to get Google results without feeding the beast, or use the !g command when searching with DDG to get Google results.

pjmlp 9y ago

You probably haven't seen one, because most of them are enterprise apps used by the employees, not something for the regular user.

PedroBatista 9y ago

They are selling it to B2B devs. No flashy things but a lot of boiled goose.