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Xamarin on paper seems like the holy Grail, but the fact that Microsoft itself chose to use react native instead of its own solution for Skype made it seem like

Xamarin on paper seems like the holy Grail, but the fact that Microsoft itself chose to use react native instead of its own solution for Skype made it seem like I should not expect long term commitment to xamarin from MS.

hkolk 7y ago
I would be careful to attribute framework decision making to careful thought. This is more the regular organizational dysfunctionality. Either: - The entire organization uses a single framework (and improves on it), which will lead to a bunch of teams grumbling that "We are only using X because of organizational pressure, while Y is much better" - You leave freedom to the org to pick their technology, and hope/steer people towards certain parts. But you will have to accept some divergence from the norm I prefer the second org, and luckily I am in such a place where we can use Go while the team next to us is on Scala, and we weigh in-house developed technology against publicly available technology on ROI.
dingle_thunk 7y ago
The Skype engineering team is an acquisition with relative autonomy, and is always making weird choices. Wouldn't take that too seriously.
- htormey 7y ago
  Microsoft Office has gone all in with React Native as well. Here is a recent comment from Andy Coates talking about MS Office Android performance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20413046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20413046 Other article talking about it: https://blog.appfigures.com/microsoft-goes-all-in-on-react-native-for-their-mobile-apps/ https://blog.appfigures.com/microsoft-goes-all-in-on-react-n...
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    They have addressed this at BUILD. Xamarin for .NET devs, React Native for C++ devs (a bit like QML/Qt). Office naturally fits the C++ devs way.
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      Office also has to make sure that things work on the web given they also support all the Office.com O365 versions of their apps. That's another reason they'd prefer React Native (for React Native Web) to Xamarin. But the Office team is also a right tool for each job group and has both Xamarin and React Native apps and telling the difference between them is getting tougher to do. You can already integrate React Native components inside a Xamarin app and vice versa because they each can look like native components to each other, and it's not entirely an either/or decision.

hkolk 7y ago

I would be careful to attribute framework decision making to careful thought. This is more the regular organizational dysfunctionality. Either: - The entire organization uses a single framework (and improves on it), which will lead to a bunch of teams grumbling that "We are only using X because of organizational pressure, while Y is much better" - You leave freedom to the org to pick their technology, and hope/steer people towards certain parts. But you will have to accept some divergence from the norm I prefer the second org, and luckily I am in such a place where we can use Go while the team next to us is on Scala, and we weigh in-house developed technology against publicly available technology on ROI.

dingle_thunk 7y ago

The Skype engineering team is an acquisition with relative autonomy, and is always making weird choices. Wouldn't take that too seriously.

htormey 7y ago
Microsoft Office has gone all in with React Native as well. Here is a recent comment from Andy Coates talking about MS Office Android performance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20413046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20413046 Other article talking about it: https://blog.appfigures.com/microsoft-goes-all-in-on-react-native-for-their-mobile-apps/ https://blog.appfigures.com/microsoft-goes-all-in-on-react-n...
- pjmlp 7y ago
  They have addressed this at BUILD. Xamarin for .NET devs, React Native for C++ devs (a bit like QML/Qt). Office naturally fits the C++ devs way.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    Office also has to make sure that things work on the web given they also support all the Office.com O365 versions of their apps. That's another reason they'd prefer React Native (for React Native Web) to Xamarin. But the Office team is also a right tool for each job group and has both Xamarin and React Native apps and telling the difference between them is getting tougher to do. You can already integrate React Native components inside a Xamarin app and vice versa because they each can look like native components to each other, and it's not entirely an either/or decision.