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Recently priced out Xamarin for my organization, that is super expensive. Do most people buy just 2 platforms (Android and iOS) per developer? How does Xamarin

by snomad 13y ago

Recently priced out Xamarin for my organization, that is super expensive. Do most people buy just 2 platforms (Android and iOS) per developer? How does Xamarin do with differences like the Android Action Bar vs. Apple's bar at the bottom?

nbevans 13y ago
It's magnitudes cheaper than hiring a team of developers for each mobile platform, like what most of the sheep following the herd companies seem to do. Xamarin leaves details to do with views and presentation up to you. In a properly designed application using MVVM pattern you can use the appropriate native and best practices per platform.
- notastartup 13y ago
  There must be some cons of doing this as well though right? It's great that you can save a developer per platform and that you have one code base but is the end product as good as something that a dedicated developer for that platform would produce?
  - statictype 13y ago
    Right. You still ideally need someone who knows iOS to do the iOS app and someone who knows Android to do the Android app. Because the best way to build apps on each one is still different. What Xamarin basically does for you (from my experience using it) is that you can now share the bits of code that are not OS-specific (like your business logic, data access layer, web services etc...). It doesn't try to hide the underlying platform from you though. It's not a solution for write-once deploy everywhere (those solutions suck anyway).
keithwarren 13y ago
UI implementations are native to each OS, the C# code is often shared between apps but UI interaction code tends to be per platform. There are some places that abstraction layers make sense but part of the value proposition is that you still have a completely native build and native look and feel. Therefore, in these UI cases, you write platform specific code.
statictype 13y ago
Yeah, price was an issue for me (using it as a single developer for a hobby project). I started doing an Android app using it and loved it but when it came to pay for the developer version, I couldn't justify the cost - especially for an ecosystem that is constantly changing (and therefore requires constant updates which are also paid). I sucked it up and re-wrote the app in Android Studio. Nowhere close to as pleasant as Xamarin but got the job done.

by snomad 13y ago

nbevans 13y ago

It's magnitudes cheaper than hiring a team of developers for each mobile platform, like what most of the sheep following the herd companies seem to do. Xamarin leaves details to do with views and presentation up to you. In a properly designed application using MVVM pattern you can use the appropriate native and best practices per platform.

notastartup 13y ago
There must be some cons of doing this as well though right? It's great that you can save a developer per platform and that you have one code base but is the end product as good as something that a dedicated developer for that platform would produce?
- statictype 13y ago
  Right. You still ideally need someone who knows iOS to do the iOS app and someone who knows Android to do the Android app. Because the best way to build apps on each one is still different. What Xamarin basically does for you (from my experience using it) is that you can now share the bits of code that are not OS-specific (like your business logic, data access layer, web services etc...). It doesn't try to hide the underlying platform from you though. It's not a solution for write-once deploy everywhere (those solutions suck anyway).

keithwarren 13y ago

UI implementations are native to each OS, the C# code is often shared between apps but UI interaction code tends to be per platform. There are some places that abstraction layers make sense but part of the value proposition is that you still have a completely native build and native look and feel. Therefore, in these UI cases, you write platform specific code.

statictype 13y ago

Yeah, price was an issue for me (using it as a single developer for a hobby project). I started doing an Android app using it and loved it but when it came to pay for the developer version, I couldn't justify the cost - especially for an ecosystem that is constantly changing (and therefore requires constant updates which are also paid). I sucked it up and re-wrote the app in Android Studio. Nowhere close to as pleasant as Xamarin but got the job done.