5 ms·

You might want to consider how much Microsoft uses it in their own products before choosing to use it. This article describes the situation pretty well: "not

You might want to consider how much Microsoft uses it in their own products before choosing to use it. This article describes the situation pretty well: "not even Microsoft, literally the people who own Xamarin, use it in any of their big products like Teams, Outlook, and the list goes on. Instead, they reach for native development or Electron. So we can just tie a bow in it and have a minute's silence for another end-of-life cross-platform software development framework." "None of These Problems Are Solved With MAUI. The poor developer experience, how apps look, XAML being a pain, and these other core issues won’t be resolved by MAUI. So, if you already know Xamarin Forms, and you’re waiting for MAUI to land, but you’re not 100% thrilled with the experience so far, then it’s a great opportunity to think about learning something else." Source: https://betterprogramming.pub/xamarin-forms-is-dying-and-maui-may-not-be-future-f0395575ac5d https://betterprogramming.pub/xamarin-forms-is-dying-and-mau...

windows2020 4y ago
In the case of Teams, I think they regret choosing Electron. A Xamarin app doesn't need to use XML or Xamarin Forms which provides UI components. A totally custom interface/game can be developed with Xamarin + SkiaSharp which provides drawing primitives.
- giaour 4y ago
  As a user with a finite amount of memory on my computer, I also regret them choosing Electron.
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    They should hire better engineers, perhaps those with more experience than just leet code. The apps i built using electron for some clients have none of the issues teams has. I mean come on, teams is a basic chat app, how difficult is it to optimise it?
    - seper8 4y ago
      Yes, it's a "basic" chat app. Like google is a "basic" search engine, how hard can it be to make something like that? Just make it go search?
      - yrgulation 4y ago
        Comparing teams to google is a bit meh. There’s nothing special about that app other than how crap it is. A poorly written tool made by inexperienced devs.
        giaour 4y ago
        Teams is also very bloated (or "full featured" depending on how you want to spin it) compared to other chat apps, which does make it special by comparison. Teams is trying very hard to make itself a platform, and it supports telephony in a way that other chat apps don't. I can be reached on my work Teams account via a dedicated phone number, and the account includes a bunch of Viva applications and pretty deep integrations with Office, SharePoint, and Power Platform.
        yrgulation 4y ago
        First indicator that teams is ill designed is feature creep. But i suppose people find some utility in it. Telephony is likely handled by a server and teams is acting as a video / voice client just like any other modern chat app. I dont know about its integration with office and other microsoft bloatware but i do imagine those integrations are poorly designed as well. Microsoft products are well known for taking up memory for no good reason so i dont see why this would be an exception. Blaming issues on electron is just lazy on their part.
        giaour 4y ago
        I’m not sure I’ve heard the Teams folks explicitly blaming Electron. I run other, more complex MSFT programs (eg Office) on the same computer, and they use a fraction of the memory and CPU that Teams does.
- n8cpdx 4y ago
  They could also just use flutter which is skia under the hood - I think would be substantially faster than dealing with Xamarin. Doing stuff with Skia on MAUI at least is tricky because there is no concept of a mouse, so good luck creating a hover effect on your button. https://github.com/dotnet/maui/issues/3739 https://github.com/dotnet/maui/issues/3739
jayd16 4y ago
Those products predate the purchase of Xamarin and are web products in their latest form. It's not that surprising or telling.
- n8cpdx 4y ago
  None of those products, as apps, predate Xamarin. Outlook for Mobile was an acquisition; Xamarin existed at the time. Teams Mobile apps are native and built while Xamarin existed; not using Xamarin.
  - jayd16 4y ago
    Xamarin existing and MS touching it are different things, though. It's only been "official" for a short time and only after Microsoft acquired it. Rewriting the history as if Xamarin was an option from the beginning is disingenuous.
    - Meph504 4y ago
      Microsoft acquired Xamarin on Feb 24, 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xamarin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xamarin Microsoft announced Teams March 17, 2017, with a launch date of the end of 2018 https://news.microsoft.com/announcement/teams-platform-introduced/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.microsoft.com%2Fabout%2F https://news.microsoft.com/announcement/teams-platform-intro... Make of that what you will.
- JimDabell 4y ago
  Which applications have Microsoft chosen to build with Xamarin?
zerr 4y ago
So the same story as with MFC.

windows2020 4y ago

In the case of Teams, I think they regret choosing Electron. A Xamarin app doesn't need to use XML or Xamarin Forms which provides UI components. A totally custom interface/game can be developed with Xamarin + SkiaSharp which provides drawing primitives.

giaour 4y ago
As a user with a finite amount of memory on my computer, I also regret them choosing Electron.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  They should hire better engineers, perhaps those with more experience than just leet code. The apps i built using electron for some clients have none of the issues teams has. I mean come on, teams is a basic chat app, how difficult is it to optimise it?
  - seper8 4y ago
    Yes, it's a "basic" chat app. Like google is a "basic" search engine, how hard can it be to make something like that? Just make it go search?
    - yrgulation 4y ago
      Comparing teams to google is a bit meh. There’s nothing special about that app other than how crap it is. A poorly written tool made by inexperienced devs.
      - giaour 4y ago
        Teams is also very bloated (or "full featured" depending on how you want to spin it) compared to other chat apps, which does make it special by comparison. Teams is trying very hard to make itself a platform, and it supports telephony in a way that other chat apps don't. I can be reached on my work Teams account via a dedicated phone number, and the account includes a bunch of Viva applications and pretty deep integrations with Office, SharePoint, and Power Platform.
        yrgulation 4y ago
        First indicator that teams is ill designed is feature creep. But i suppose people find some utility in it. Telephony is likely handled by a server and teams is acting as a video / voice client just like any other modern chat app. I dont know about its integration with office and other microsoft bloatware but i do imagine those integrations are poorly designed as well. Microsoft products are well known for taking up memory for no good reason so i dont see why this would be an exception. Blaming issues on electron is just lazy on their part.
        giaour 4y ago
        I’m not sure I’ve heard the Teams folks explicitly blaming Electron. I run other, more complex MSFT programs (eg Office) on the same computer, and they use a fraction of the memory and CPU that Teams does.
n8cpdx 4y ago
They could also just use flutter which is skia under the hood - I think would be substantially faster than dealing with Xamarin. Doing stuff with Skia on MAUI at least is tricky because there is no concept of a mouse, so good luck creating a hover effect on your button. https://github.com/dotnet/maui/issues/3739 https://github.com/dotnet/maui/issues/3739

jayd16 4y ago

Those products predate the purchase of Xamarin and are web products in their latest form. It's not that surprising or telling.

n8cpdx 4y ago
None of those products, as apps, predate Xamarin. Outlook for Mobile was an acquisition; Xamarin existed at the time. Teams Mobile apps are native and built while Xamarin existed; not using Xamarin.
- jayd16 4y ago
  Xamarin existing and MS touching it are different things, though. It's only been "official" for a short time and only after Microsoft acquired it. Rewriting the history as if Xamarin was an option from the beginning is disingenuous.
  - Meph504 4y ago
    Microsoft acquired Xamarin on Feb 24, 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xamarin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xamarin Microsoft announced Teams March 17, 2017, with a launch date of the end of 2018 https://news.microsoft.com/announcement/teams-platform-introduced/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.microsoft.com%2Fabout%2F https://news.microsoft.com/announcement/teams-platform-intro... Make of that what you will.
JimDabell 4y ago
Which applications have Microsoft chosen to build with Xamarin?

zerr 4y ago

So the same story as with MFC.