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Last time I tried Xamarin Forms was almost 3 years ago so things probably got a little better with .NET standard and all that jazz but I would NEVER touch Xamar

Last time I tried Xamarin Forms was almost 3 years ago so things probably got a little better with .NET standard and all that jazz but I would NEVER touch Xamarin Forms even if I was going to use Xamarin again. The amount of Indian code farm developers generating content for it is surreal - the community is full of low quality garbage (Q/A, docs, code) - the official docs and libraries were horrible - like their examples reference a library that comes from Xamarin (something like contrib repo - don't remember exactly but a fairly big/common lib) - some control from this lib doesn't work with latest framework - you try searching for the reason - eventually on the GH issues you find that the author (some guy at Xamarin) decided the approach the entire library is taking is a dead end and he's working on another lib - meanwhile the official one doesn't work against the latest version of the framework but the docs are still referencing it and it's published under Xamarin namespace/GH. The amount of time I spent in that hellhole to get a demo working is surreal - it would have taken 1/2 the time to build a C# core with native frontends even in Xamarin toolkit, and with things like Flutter - honestly you are going to be more productive and get better results if you rewrite the C# logic in Dart or build a bridge and just do the UI in Flutter. Ionic will not come close in quality - but for form based apps the productivity is insanely better (even considering how broken plugins are and the hassle of every other iOS upgrade breaking your app in some way). Or probably any other mobile frontend tech. TL;DR: Xamarin (Forms) is by far the worst framework for mobile development I've tried, and talking to other C# devs that used it on commercial projects they unanimously agree.

simendsjo 7y ago
This doesn't sound good at all. On the flipside, I've heard and read several people who say Xamarin has been a critical part of their success and like the ecosystem and libraries. Three years in IT is a long time, so maybe things have changed? I would love to hear other experience reports too. PS: "Indian code farm developrs (...) low quality garbage (...)" is a gross simplification and generalization which further strengthen negative stereotypes. I advice a different wording to avoid feeding trolls and haters.
Sankra 7y ago
I've used Xamarin Forms privately since beta when it was just a little experiment, through now when it's an integral part of Microsoft's strategy. I've also used it professionally, with good results. The difference from 3 years ago is night and day. The kinks are worked out, the framework is performant, the devex glorious and you can freely mix Forms and native creating any mobile experience. The libraries are stable and XAML together with simple patterns makes you really productive, really fast. A perfect match for dotnet-heavy shops, great for everyone else too, but maybe not the right match if you live and breathe JS.

simendsjo 7y ago

This doesn't sound good at all. On the flipside, I've heard and read several people who say Xamarin has been a critical part of their success and like the ecosystem and libraries. Three years in IT is a long time, so maybe things have changed? I would love to hear other experience reports too. PS: "Indian code farm developrs (...) low quality garbage (...)" is a gross simplification and generalization which further strengthen negative stereotypes. I advice a different wording to avoid feeding trolls and haters.

Sankra 7y ago

I've used Xamarin Forms privately since beta when it was just a little experiment, through now when it's an integral part of Microsoft's strategy. I've also used it professionally, with good results. The difference from 3 years ago is night and day. The kinks are worked out, the framework is performant, the devex glorious and you can freely mix Forms and native creating any mobile experience. The libraries are stable and XAML together with simple patterns makes you really productive, really fast. A perfect match for dotnet-heavy shops, great for everyone else too, but maybe not the right match if you live and breathe JS.