30 ms·

Microsoft and Xamarin partner

217 points by bratsche 13y ago

mikecaron 13y ago
A huge applause for Miguel, he's been laboring over this for such a long time and it's amazing to see the fruit of his passion and perseverance.
gesman 13y ago
I love that! I might even consider buying MSFT stock after 12 years of ignoring it... :)
- judah 13y ago
  It's shot up nearly $10/share in the last couple months. Just unloaded mine the other week for a nice profit.
programminggeek 13y ago
This is not surprising at all. I've been wondering if/when Microsoft would just buy Xamarin. Perhaps this is the first step?
- thatthatis 13y ago
  The scenario I keep hoping for is: ms buys xamarin, MIT licenses the entire xamarin cross platform ecosystem (while charging for build services like phonegap does), adds a "compile to html/css/js" feature so you can write your web frontend in c#. This scenario leads to the following: C# wins as the "cross platform mobile language," window phone is the default first environment for cross platform apps, and as developers we get an elegant "write once* run everywhere" that's based on c#. The asterisk: once plus ui customizations on each platform, so more like write (1 + (.1 * num_non_wp8_platforms)) times Unfortunately, though I think these moves would make ms a dominating player in mobile and web for decades, I doubt they'll do this.
  - AUmrysh 13y ago
    If they came up with a unified, cross platform, UI format, it would make it so much easier. As it is now, you have to write your own view for each platform, instead of being able to use generic objects (buttons, cells, text, images, etc.) which wrap the native ones. If they did that, they would very likely, as you say, dominate mobile for a long time. Nothing is more frustrating than jumping between android XML, Java, and eclipse (or whatever) and XCode, OBJ-C, and the iOS UI, while trying to not go insane.
    - thatthatis 13y ago
      I think the key to a unified cross platform ui format is going to be another layer of separation of concerns, similar to HTML/CSS. I think this because I believe that platform-level ui look and feel differences are going to be with us for a long time. I think you can standardize "what it does" and "how it does it", but you'll have to keep platform specific "how to invoke" and "how it looks" for a long time. Maybe a MVCP paradigm is what we need, where the controller is split into common controller and platform controller
    - w0rd-driven 13y ago
      I think XAML is that format, but it isn't without its pain points. You pretty much can't do animation without a tool like Blend unless you're a sadist. It looks like Xamarin uses .AXML for Android (maybe a XAML flavor) but has to adhere to Interface Builder for iOS (http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/application_fundamentals/building_cross_platform_applications/part_1_-_understanding_the_xamarin_mobile_platform/ http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/application_fu..., specifically the Visual Designer section). XAML likely won't gain any traction on those platforms though due to NiH on all sides. HTML/CSS is likely as close as we get for now but that isn't a "native view" in any of the platforms mentioned.
      - skrebbel 13y ago
        .AXML has no relation to XAML at all. It's just plain Android layouts: when doing plain Java Android dev, they're just .xml files. I believe that Xamarin made up a new extension for them because it allows them to easily associate the file extension with a special editor in the IDE (Visual Studio and Xamarin Studio/MonoDevelop). Xamarin's Android interface builder is actually remarkably decent.
- keithwarren 13y ago
  Microsoft is a possible suitor and that follows logic with what we saw in the Nokia purchase. That said, I still think Amazon will buy Xamarin.
- pmelendez 13y ago
  Like what happened with Nokia? It is very possible
- gexla 13y ago
  Money talks, bull__ walks. So, they are collaborating, writing blog posts and sharing stages. Of course, Xamarin is also shipping more code, which is what impresses me about these guys. Miguel has already said Xamarin has had some links (maybe more information sharing than collaboration) with engineers at Microsoft. How is this much different? This seems like a weak thread. The sort of thing which could quickly cool down or die altogether. There doesn't seem to be any solid commitments here. Of course, we still have the assurance that Xamarin will continue to be impressive. I just think it's a pretty big leap from this blog post to "maybe Microsoft will buy Xamarin." Edit: Fixed errors.
TylerE 13y ago
If this results in a useable, performant (e.g. NOT mono) C#/CLR implementation on *nix, that makes a lot of things very interesting.
- chollida1 13y ago
  > If this results in a useable, performant (e.g. NOT mono) C#/CLR implementation on *nix, that makes a lot of things very interesting. I'm not sure what yiou mean by this. Do you mean you want a new implementation that inst' mono? or that you don't believe that mono is fast? if its the later then I'd have to disagree with you. We use mono for a real time trading system and find it to be more than capable of handling our needs.
  - friism 13y ago
    This is a nit-pick of mine, but Mono seems to be always at the bottom of this benchmark: http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/ http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/ If you could share details on Mono tuning for server workloads, It'd be very interested.
    - marshray 13y ago
      Looking at the error count column suggests that the benchmark setup is just plain broken. I can't imagine the times are accurate.
      - pekk 13y ago
        After many of its iterations have been posted to HN with little improvement in quality, it's clear that the point of the benchmark is to tout certain languages like Java, so this is not surprising
        lmm 13y ago
        I don't think this is fair. Is there a better alternative available?
sigzero 13y ago
Good for Xamarin (I hope). I am a fan of Miguel de Icaza. I asked him a question about Gnome programming and he sent me a book on it. Nice guy.
- silverbax88 13y ago
  I have told people in the past that for every hyped up Mark Zuckerberg - guys who are thought of as programming geniuses by the masses but in reality are just kid hackers - there are guys like Miguel de Icaza who are the real deal and the mainstream world has no idea exist.
  - michielvoo 13y ago
    Besides his skills as a software developer, I am impressed with the fact that he has held on to his vision and led his company from Ximian, through Novell, then Attachmate and onto Xamarin.
    - TheRealDunkirk 13y ago
      I credit Nat and Miguel for making Linux on the desktop a possibility. (I believe it was Ximian desktop on RedHat that made people finally stop and think, "Hey, there might be something to this after all.") That being said, I wish they had continued down that vein, instead of switching gears to try to make a Microsoft technology "cross platform," and basically failing at the ideal. I tried several times to run a Windows program under Mono, and never could get one to work. For all the talk about how C# is an "open standard," there was always some library that wasn't open-source and hadn't been compiled for Linux which would prevent the program from working.
      - baq 13y ago
        I think you missed the point of Mono. Windows compatibility is one thing, but being able to use a really nice language that is C# and a really nice stdlib that comes with the CLR on non-Windows OS-es for development is something completely different.
CmonDev 13y ago
The s..t just got real!
CmonDev 13y ago
20-city USA-only road-show?
- blackdogie 13y ago
  I see one event for Ireland where they will be together https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032570638&Culture=en-IE&community=0 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=...
- j_s 13y ago
  Launch events that I could find (not Xamarin): Dec 11 Buenos Aires Argentina - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032571149 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Dec 3 'Online New Zealand' (webinar) - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032562086 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Nov 28 Auckland New Zealand - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032570917 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Nov 27 Santiago Chile - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032569260 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Nov 26 Wellington New Zealand - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032570924 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Nov 21 Brno Czech Republic - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032568253 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Nov 19 Praha Czech Republic - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032568250&culture=en-US https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Search: https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/AdvancedSearch.aspx?culture=en-US&evtTyp=1#culture=en-US;advanced=true;pageNumber=1;sortKey=date;sortOrder=ASC;pageEvent=true;hdnInitialCount=1;startDate=11/13/2013;endDate=2/11/2014;kwdAny=;kwdExact=Visual%20Studio%202013;eventType=1;searchcontrol=yes;s=1 https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/AdvancedSearch.aspx?cultu...
w0rd-driven 13y ago
I was excited to see the MSDN discount, realized it was double business licenses (Android and iOS bundled together) and doesn't apply to BizSpark or DreamSpark. The discount makes both not much more than a single business license. I can suspect not including the "free" MSDN tiers was done on purpose as well, likely on MS' side. No discount, no benefit of the extended 90-day trial. I can't help but feel my puppy is kicked yet again. The normal trial is likely not that bad but I consider more than my cost of Visual Studio (yes, free but still) is too big of an investment, at least to pull the trigger. The price to stay in my IDE of choice is pretty steep but there is extreme merit to that over say MonoDevelop. I'm happy for the partnership but I shouldn't have expected any more than what I'm being given. That's my problem, but one I felt the need to lament about in case someone else tries to do their own digging to come to the same conclusion...
- rodh257 13y ago
  I was hoping to sign up to their training program using our Microsoft Partner Network MSDN but alas that is also excluded :(
forgotAgain 13y ago
To me this seems mostly about Microsoft Phone(and perhaps in the future tablets). It will help to get more WP apps out there if all it takes is a rebuild of a Xamarin iOS or Android project. Makes sense. I'm guessing Xamarin gets a cash infusion in return.
Morgawr 13y ago
I'm sad, since Xamarin, the development for Monodevelop and the focus on Linux systems has become abysmal and terrible. This is just a very very sad sellout tactic. Way to kill off the Linux ecosystem.
- justin66 13y ago
  If open source projects like that can't stand without constant corporate attention, should they stand? It sounds like they're trying to get stuff in to the hands of people who are actually interested.
- avenger123 13y ago
  Even if the focus is on Andriod/iOS using C#, there should be definite spillover effects for Mono. I see this as win/win.
- itsboring 13y ago
  Can you give specific examples? As far as I know, every improvement to MonoDevelop and Mono has been contributed back to the open source projects, which benefits Linux users as well. My team is currently working on a project targeting Linux using Mono and MonoDevelop, with heavy use of OpenGL and the like. The recent improvements have been great. So, I'm very curious, what is your actual complaint?
- CmonDev 13y ago
  Then open a profitable Linux app store. If you are making something good people will make a road to your house.
  - pekk 13y ago
    I suspect this is tougher than throwing up a website
runfaster2000 13y ago
Here is the MSFT announcement: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2013/11/13/pcl-and-net-nuget-libraries-are-now-enabled-for-xamarin.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2013/11/13/pcl-and-ne...
melling 13y ago
Is there a way to toe dip into this? I've got a a bunch of Objective C code and I'd like to try some C#, which I could then use for my Android app. My hesitation with any non-blessed solution is that you can get 90% of the way, then you're screwed by some limitation.
- atwebb 13y ago
  I believe they have a trail but you have to use MonoDevelop (last I checked) and not VS.
- CodeCube 13y ago
  You can bind objective-c libraries so that they're usable from a Xamarin app: http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/ios/advanced_topics/binding_objective-c/ http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/ios/advanced_topics/binding_o... Same goes for Java libs: docs.xamarin.com/guides/android/advanced_topics/java_integration_overview/binding_a_java_library_(.jar)/
Xelom 13y ago
This is better than buying Nokia! Finally some smart move from Microsoft. Because C# is a fantastic language, it has powerful tools which other languages lack and Xamarin gave developers a great opportunity(price is high though). I really can't understand some people that are in doubt with Microsoft support to C#. It is the best thing they have done and Visual Studio is the second in my opinion. And Microsoft is well aware of this, everyday we can see Microsoft making a move about C#, .Net and Azure ecosystem. Nowadays, Google is more popular for stopping services and no one bats an eye. Give Microsoft some credits guys, at least for things they are doing great.
josteink 13y ago
Such a shame Xamarin studio isn't available for Linux though. I'm not getting a Mac to try it out, and in Windows I have VS.
- knocte 13y ago
  XamarinStudio is available for Linux, just under a different name: "MonoDevelop". It has that name because in Linux the Xamarin offerings don't work, therefore they're not included in MonoDevelop.
fidotron 13y ago
It's possible to start to see an internal problem for MS breaking out between this and any development of VS to being web based: their tools division and the Windows division appear to be heading in different directions. For example, the tools people might succeed in making non-Windows clients far too attractive and easy to deploy to, while simultaneously making sure you don't even need to be on Windows to be using the tools. Not saying this is without merit as plenty of people would love proper C# tooling off Windows, and arguably the real use of Windows remains in hosting Exchange servers, but it really looks like even MS don't believe Windows is the end user system any more.
binarycrusader 13y ago
...an extended 90-day trial (enough time to write the next Instagram or billion-dollar Enterprise app from scratch!)... Seems a tad hyperbolic to me. I wish Microsoft would just buy Xamarin and freely license the runtime to all under liberal (e.g. MIT/BSD) terms. That would surely be a big win for C# from a mindshare / platform growth standpoint.
donnfelker 13y ago
Great idea, hard to execute in the real world. I know, I've done it. I built an app with Xamarin about 3.5 years ago. Released it as an MVP to the App Store. I wrote the Android version as well and released it (but went native android because I knew it).I eventually wanted to upgrade some features on my iOS app (Xamarin). I tried finding contractors to do it, and the lowest I could find at the time were around 90/hr. While I could find great iOS devs for half of that. I ended up having an iOS dev re-write the app in Obj-C for much cheaper than it would have been to add new features to the old Xamarin app. Moral of the story - The idea is great. But the problem is that no one knows how to use Xamarin and those that do charge a premium. If the app is native you can find many more qualified devs that know how to code for the platform at a much more affordable price. All my apps are native now. No more Xamarin. I loved the product, but from the business side it didnt make sense financially for me to continue to go down that road. Worked great to prove the MVP though.
- sampk 13y ago
  Great comment. I've been looking for such a niche for some time. I'll start scanning freelance sites now.
- keithwarren 13y ago
  3.5 years ago is the key. Xamarin has come a long way in the past 12 months, not to mention the past 42. Developers who know this have grown considerably in that period as well. On an aside, 90/hr for a competent dev is cheap. I know most people on HN don't make a salary that equates to that but freelancers have an entirely different set of concerns and 90 is low.
  - magnet_ball 13y ago
    I've seen a lot of talk about how far Mono has gone in recent times but not much in writing. Do you have anything about the progress that was made? Blog posts, announcements, anecdotal evedence? I'm looking for stuff to show to the team so we could consider expanding our C# development to linux too.
- gexla 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

217 points by bratsche 13y ago

A huge applause for Miguel, he's been laboring over this for such a long time and it's amazing to see the fruit of his passion and perseverance.

gesman 13y ago

I love that! I might even consider buying MSFT stock after 12 years of ignoring it... :)

judah 13y ago
It's shot up nearly $10/share in the last couple months. Just unloaded mine the other week for a nice profit.

programminggeek 13y ago

This is not surprising at all. I've been wondering if/when Microsoft would just buy Xamarin. Perhaps this is the first step?

thatthatis 13y ago
The scenario I keep hoping for is: ms buys xamarin, MIT licenses the entire xamarin cross platform ecosystem (while charging for build services like phonegap does), adds a "compile to html/css/js" feature so you can write your web frontend in c#. This scenario leads to the following: C# wins as the "cross platform mobile language," window phone is the default first environment for cross platform apps, and as developers we get an elegant "write once* run everywhere" that's based on c#. The asterisk: once plus ui customizations on each platform, so more like write (1 + (.1 * num_non_wp8_platforms)) times Unfortunately, though I think these moves would make ms a dominating player in mobile and web for decades, I doubt they'll do this.
- AUmrysh 13y ago
  If they came up with a unified, cross platform, UI format, it would make it so much easier. As it is now, you have to write your own view for each platform, instead of being able to use generic objects (buttons, cells, text, images, etc.) which wrap the native ones. If they did that, they would very likely, as you say, dominate mobile for a long time. Nothing is more frustrating than jumping between android XML, Java, and eclipse (or whatever) and XCode, OBJ-C, and the iOS UI, while trying to not go insane.
  - thatthatis 13y ago
    I think the key to a unified cross platform ui format is going to be another layer of separation of concerns, similar to HTML/CSS. I think this because I believe that platform-level ui look and feel differences are going to be with us for a long time. I think you can standardize "what it does" and "how it does it", but you'll have to keep platform specific "how to invoke" and "how it looks" for a long time. Maybe a MVCP paradigm is what we need, where the controller is split into common controller and platform controller
  - w0rd-driven 13y ago
    I think XAML is that format, but it isn't without its pain points. You pretty much can't do animation without a tool like Blend unless you're a sadist. It looks like Xamarin uses .AXML for Android (maybe a XAML flavor) but has to adhere to Interface Builder for iOS (http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/application_fundamentals/building_cross_platform_applications/part_1_-_understanding_the_xamarin_mobile_platform/ http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/application_fu..., specifically the Visual Designer section). XAML likely won't gain any traction on those platforms though due to NiH on all sides. HTML/CSS is likely as close as we get for now but that isn't a "native view" in any of the platforms mentioned.
    - skrebbel 13y ago
      .AXML has no relation to XAML at all. It's just plain Android layouts: when doing plain Java Android dev, they're just .xml files. I believe that Xamarin made up a new extension for them because it allows them to easily associate the file extension with a special editor in the IDE (Visual Studio and Xamarin Studio/MonoDevelop). Xamarin's Android interface builder is actually remarkably decent.
keithwarren 13y ago
Microsoft is a possible suitor and that follows logic with what we saw in the Nokia purchase. That said, I still think Amazon will buy Xamarin.
pmelendez 13y ago
Like what happened with Nokia? It is very possible
gexla 13y ago
Money talks, bull__ walks. So, they are collaborating, writing blog posts and sharing stages. Of course, Xamarin is also shipping more code, which is what impresses me about these guys. Miguel has already said Xamarin has had some links (maybe more information sharing than collaboration) with engineers at Microsoft. How is this much different? This seems like a weak thread. The sort of thing which could quickly cool down or die altogether. There doesn't seem to be any solid commitments here. Of course, we still have the assurance that Xamarin will continue to be impressive. I just think it's a pretty big leap from this blog post to "maybe Microsoft will buy Xamarin." Edit: Fixed errors.

TylerE 13y ago

If this results in a useable, performant (e.g. NOT mono) C#/CLR implementation on *nix, that makes a lot of things very interesting.

chollida1 13y ago
> If this results in a useable, performant (e.g. NOT mono) C#/CLR implementation on *nix, that makes a lot of things very interesting. I'm not sure what yiou mean by this. Do you mean you want a new implementation that inst' mono? or that you don't believe that mono is fast? if its the later then I'd have to disagree with you. We use mono for a real time trading system and find it to be more than capable of handling our needs.
- friism 13y ago
  This is a nit-pick of mine, but Mono seems to be always at the bottom of this benchmark: http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/ http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/ If you could share details on Mono tuning for server workloads, It'd be very interested.
  - marshray 13y ago
    Looking at the error count column suggests that the benchmark setup is just plain broken. I can't imagine the times are accurate.
    - pekk 13y ago
      After many of its iterations have been posted to HN with little improvement in quality, it's clear that the point of the benchmark is to tout certain languages like Java, so this is not surprising
      - lmm 13y ago
        I don't think this is fair. Is there a better alternative available?

sigzero 13y ago

Good for Xamarin (I hope). I am a fan of Miguel de Icaza. I asked him a question about Gnome programming and he sent me a book on it. Nice guy.

silverbax88 13y ago
I have told people in the past that for every hyped up Mark Zuckerberg - guys who are thought of as programming geniuses by the masses but in reality are just kid hackers - there are guys like Miguel de Icaza who are the real deal and the mainstream world has no idea exist.
- michielvoo 13y ago
  Besides his skills as a software developer, I am impressed with the fact that he has held on to his vision and led his company from Ximian, through Novell, then Attachmate and onto Xamarin.
  - TheRealDunkirk 13y ago
    I credit Nat and Miguel for making Linux on the desktop a possibility. (I believe it was Ximian desktop on RedHat that made people finally stop and think, "Hey, there might be something to this after all.") That being said, I wish they had continued down that vein, instead of switching gears to try to make a Microsoft technology "cross platform," and basically failing at the ideal. I tried several times to run a Windows program under Mono, and never could get one to work. For all the talk about how C# is an "open standard," there was always some library that wasn't open-source and hadn't been compiled for Linux which would prevent the program from working.
    - baq 13y ago
      I think you missed the point of Mono. Windows compatibility is one thing, but being able to use a really nice language that is C# and a really nice stdlib that comes with the CLR on non-Windows OS-es for development is something completely different.

CmonDev 13y ago

The s..t just got real!

CmonDev 13y ago

20-city USA-only road-show?

blackdogie 13y ago
I see one event for Ireland where they will be together https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032570638&Culture=en-IE&community=0 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=...
j_s 13y ago
Launch events that I could find (not Xamarin): Dec 11 Buenos Aires Argentina - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032571149 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Dec 3 'Online New Zealand' (webinar) - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032562086 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Nov 28 Auckland New Zealand - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032570917 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Nov 27 Santiago Chile - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032569260 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Nov 26 Wellington New Zealand - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032570924 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Nov 21 Brno Czech Republic - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032568253 https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Nov 19 Praha Czech Republic - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032568250&culture=en-US https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=... Search: https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/AdvancedSearch.aspx?culture=en-US&evtTyp=1#culture=en-US;advanced=true;pageNumber=1;sortKey=date;sortOrder=ASC;pageEvent=true;hdnInitialCount=1;startDate=11/13/2013;endDate=2/11/2014;kwdAny=;kwdExact=Visual%20Studio%202013;eventType=1;searchcontrol=yes;s=1 https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/AdvancedSearch.aspx?cultu...

w0rd-driven 13y ago

I was excited to see the MSDN discount, realized it was double business licenses (Android and iOS bundled together) and doesn't apply to BizSpark or DreamSpark. The discount makes both not much more than a single business license. I can suspect not including the "free" MSDN tiers was done on purpose as well, likely on MS' side. No discount, no benefit of the extended 90-day trial. I can't help but feel my puppy is kicked yet again. The normal trial is likely not that bad but I consider more than my cost of Visual Studio (yes, free but still) is too big of an investment, at least to pull the trigger. The price to stay in my IDE of choice is pretty steep but there is extreme merit to that over say MonoDevelop. I'm happy for the partnership but I shouldn't have expected any more than what I'm being given. That's my problem, but one I felt the need to lament about in case someone else tries to do their own digging to come to the same conclusion...

rodh257 13y ago
I was hoping to sign up to their training program using our Microsoft Partner Network MSDN but alas that is also excluded :(

forgotAgain 13y ago

To me this seems mostly about Microsoft Phone(and perhaps in the future tablets). It will help to get more WP apps out there if all it takes is a rebuild of a Xamarin iOS or Android project. Makes sense. I'm guessing Xamarin gets a cash infusion in return.

Morgawr 13y ago

I'm sad, since Xamarin, the development for Monodevelop and the focus on Linux systems has become abysmal and terrible. This is just a very very sad sellout tactic. Way to kill off the Linux ecosystem.

justin66 13y ago
If open source projects like that can't stand without constant corporate attention, should they stand? It sounds like they're trying to get stuff in to the hands of people who are actually interested.
avenger123 13y ago
Even if the focus is on Andriod/iOS using C#, there should be definite spillover effects for Mono. I see this as win/win.
itsboring 13y ago
Can you give specific examples? As far as I know, every improvement to MonoDevelop and Mono has been contributed back to the open source projects, which benefits Linux users as well. My team is currently working on a project targeting Linux using Mono and MonoDevelop, with heavy use of OpenGL and the like. The recent improvements have been great. So, I'm very curious, what is your actual complaint?
CmonDev 13y ago
Then open a profitable Linux app store. If you are making something good people will make a road to your house.
- pekk 13y ago
  I suspect this is tougher than throwing up a website

runfaster2000 13y ago

Here is the MSFT announcement: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2013/11/13/pcl-and-net-nuget-libraries-are-now-enabled-for-xamarin.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2013/11/13/pcl-and-ne...

melling 13y ago

Is there a way to toe dip into this? I've got a a bunch of Objective C code and I'd like to try some C#, which I could then use for my Android app. My hesitation with any non-blessed solution is that you can get 90% of the way, then you're screwed by some limitation.

atwebb 13y ago
I believe they have a trail but you have to use MonoDevelop (last I checked) and not VS.
CodeCube 13y ago
You can bind objective-c libraries so that they're usable from a Xamarin app: http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/ios/advanced_topics/binding_objective-c/ http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/ios/advanced_topics/binding_o... Same goes for Java libs: docs.xamarin.com/guides/android/advanced_topics/java_integration_overview/binding_a_java_library_(.jar)/

Xelom 13y ago

This is better than buying Nokia! Finally some smart move from Microsoft. Because C# is a fantastic language, it has powerful tools which other languages lack and Xamarin gave developers a great opportunity(price is high though). I really can't understand some people that are in doubt with Microsoft support to C#. It is the best thing they have done and Visual Studio is the second in my opinion. And Microsoft is well aware of this, everyday we can see Microsoft making a move about C#, .Net and Azure ecosystem. Nowadays, Google is more popular for stopping services and no one bats an eye. Give Microsoft some credits guys, at least for things they are doing great.

josteink 13y ago

Such a shame Xamarin studio isn't available for Linux though. I'm not getting a Mac to try it out, and in Windows I have VS.

knocte 13y ago
XamarinStudio is available for Linux, just under a different name: "MonoDevelop". It has that name because in Linux the Xamarin offerings don't work, therefore they're not included in MonoDevelop.

fidotron 13y ago

It's possible to start to see an internal problem for MS breaking out between this and any development of VS to being web based: their tools division and the Windows division appear to be heading in different directions. For example, the tools people might succeed in making non-Windows clients far too attractive and easy to deploy to, while simultaneously making sure you don't even need to be on Windows to be using the tools. Not saying this is without merit as plenty of people would love proper C# tooling off Windows, and arguably the real use of Windows remains in hosting Exchange servers, but it really looks like even MS don't believe Windows is the end user system any more.

binarycrusader 13y ago

...an extended 90-day trial (enough time to write the next Instagram or billion-dollar Enterprise app from scratch!)... Seems a tad hyperbolic to me. I wish Microsoft would just buy Xamarin and freely license the runtime to all under liberal (e.g. MIT/BSD) terms. That would surely be a big win for C# from a mindshare / platform growth standpoint.

donnfelker 13y ago

Great idea, hard to execute in the real world. I know, I've done it. I built an app with Xamarin about 3.5 years ago. Released it as an MVP to the App Store. I wrote the Android version as well and released it (but went native android because I knew it).I eventually wanted to upgrade some features on my iOS app (Xamarin). I tried finding contractors to do it, and the lowest I could find at the time were around 90/hr. While I could find great iOS devs for half of that. I ended up having an iOS dev re-write the app in Obj-C for much cheaper than it would have been to add new features to the old Xamarin app. Moral of the story - The idea is great. But the problem is that no one knows how to use Xamarin and those that do charge a premium. If the app is native you can find many more qualified devs that know how to code for the platform at a much more affordable price. All my apps are native now. No more Xamarin. I loved the product, but from the business side it didnt make sense financially for me to continue to go down that road. Worked great to prove the MVP though.

sampk 13y ago
Great comment. I've been looking for such a niche for some time. I'll start scanning freelance sites now.
keithwarren 13y ago
3.5 years ago is the key. Xamarin has come a long way in the past 12 months, not to mention the past 42. Developers who know this have grown considerably in that period as well. On an aside, 90/hr for a competent dev is cheap. I know most people on HN don't make a salary that equates to that but freelancers have an entirely different set of concerns and 90 is low.
- magnet_ball 13y ago
  I've seen a lot of talk about how far Mono has gone in recent times but not much in writing. Do you have anything about the progress that was made? Blog posts, announcements, anecdotal evedence? I'm looking for stuff to show to the team so we could consider expanding our C# development to linux too.
gexla 13y ago

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