4 ms·

I've been using Xamarin forms a lot now. They are miles from being as good as native development. Soooo many bugs in xamarin itself. When using Xamarin forms, y

I've been using Xamarin forms a lot now. They are miles from being as good as native development. Soooo many bugs in xamarin itself. When using Xamarin forms, you will not provide as good of product as you would native. There are also very little controls. Xaml works, but is really slow. And the layout is SOOO inefficient ! But the problem is even greater, you can't merge Android and iOS layout passes. On one platform, measuring is really fast and the other really slow ... Xamarin forms can't compensate and give native performance to this. They don't even have listview recycling ... One developer even said "RelativeLayout is probably best for you here and can do this" to the question what the fastest layout is. For Android, this is the WORST layout possible. Anyway, you will spend a LOT of time fixing Xamarin bugs and developer their controls. However, I LOVED .net functions, especially LINQ ! Anyway, development was really slow and performance is no were near to native. So if you want to deliver a simple app to a client and be cross platform, then sure. But don't try to maintain that app, you will regret it. I'm afraid the whole Xamarin thing won't solve "cross-platform" which isn't a real problem but sure. Its just another horse that Microsoft is betting on. Oh and for the people that will have to do it anyway. Use Resharper ! Xaml IntelliSense !!! It will help you a lot. I'm sorry I'm so negative, but it was genuinely the worst development I had.

radiofan 12y ago
Whilst it may require more work than Xamarin Forms, MvvmCross is a way of creating cross-platform applications using Xamarin without any of the issues you've documented above.
- taspeotis 12y ago
  I have helped ship two commercial apps with MvvmCross and it works pretty well.
  - themothaship 12y ago
    MvvmCross is pretty legit. I felt that it really made Xamarin worthwhile. I found it quite a bit easier to keep the platform specific code to a minimum and when I needed to write it it was abstracted out as much as possible.
blub 12y ago
I believe it is recommended to use one relative layout instead of multiple linear layouts, because depth quickly becomes slower than the more complex measurements needed for a relative layout. I find layouting on Android really bad TBH and there are so many presentations and guidelines on what (not) to do.
- ParanoidShroom 12y ago
  Its hardly more performant. But here is some more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYtB6mlu7vA&t=1m41s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYtB6mlu7vA&t=1m41s Yes, the documentation is far from good. But the larger problem I find is that the 2 platforms are made from opposites points, and I don't see Xamarin glueing it together as magic. But you are right, the layouts and measurements even differ per api level as they get optimisations and are really complex. It would be awesome if Xamarin could combine both platforms native performs, but I don't see that happening :(
mwcampbell 12y ago
> I'm afraid the whole Xamarin thing won't solve "cross-platform" which isn't a real problem but sure. Its just another horse that Microsoft is betting on. Why do you say "cross-platform" isn't a real problem? It sure seems to me like mobile app developers need a way to share large chunks of their code, and possibly even some UI code, between platforms while still delivering native apps.
natfriedman 12y ago
Hey, I'm the CEO of Xamarin. I'm really sorry that you had a bad experience with Xamarin.Forms. Did you try doing native development with Xamarin? I do want to be clear that Xamarin.Forms is not Xamarin. It's a library that we built to help people quickly write very simple, data-entry style apps. That's why it's called "Forms." It's not intended to be highly performant or to replicate all the per-platform APIs in Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android. For that, you should use the native APIs. We have a little more information about that here: http://cdn1.xamarin.com/Architecture%20Selector.pdf http://cdn1.xamarin.com/Architecture%20Selector.pdf And the "What Xamarin approach is right for you?" section on the Xamarin.Forms page: http://xamarin.com/forms http://xamarin.com/forms Before release, we had internally called Xamarin.Forms "duplo," to emphasize that it was for childishly-simple apps and screens, but we couldn't use that (trademarked) name for the release, unfortunately. That said, of course we still want to address all the issues that you found with Forms. Would you mind dropping me an email - nat@xamarin.com?
- bernadus_edwin 12y ago
  I using xamarin in last 16 months From my experience, xamarin take wrong UI improvement strategy Dont get me wrong, this is a good product, i love it, but just going to wrong direction This is the big 2 mistakes: 1. You change the API class and method name to .net version For first time user, this is good approach, but i must rename every sample snippet code from stackoverflow You should save the resource for renaming API to something else more valueble ( hint : fixbug ) Are you rename the API because of patent and legal issue? 2. Xamarin form This is the worst strategy. Maybe this is good for B2B And maybe B2B is good money But for me, indie programmer, B2C product, i dont need xamarin form I need best approach to use UI library Stop xamarin form, there is other way to get 90 percent shared library Support more on MVVM cross Duplicate total of the xamarin component store Improvement object sharpie to support UIKit.h Object sharpie not working if using UI library Android binding still design for eclipse project, not android studio I'm wasting 1 week to bind ListViewAnimation android, and still not working My point is, it really hard to bind UI library on xamarin Conclusion, Please please turn around and go back to your real core value. We like native, improve native, do not recreate the UI component You know what happend when you try recreate UI? Go check java se and Qt

radiofan 12y ago

Whilst it may require more work than Xamarin Forms, MvvmCross is a way of creating cross-platform applications using Xamarin without any of the issues you've documented above.

taspeotis 12y ago
I have helped ship two commercial apps with MvvmCross and it works pretty well.
- themothaship 12y ago
  MvvmCross is pretty legit. I felt that it really made Xamarin worthwhile. I found it quite a bit easier to keep the platform specific code to a minimum and when I needed to write it it was abstracted out as much as possible.

blub 12y ago

I believe it is recommended to use one relative layout instead of multiple linear layouts, because depth quickly becomes slower than the more complex measurements needed for a relative layout. I find layouting on Android really bad TBH and there are so many presentations and guidelines on what (not) to do.

ParanoidShroom 12y ago
Its hardly more performant. But here is some more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYtB6mlu7vA&t=1m41s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYtB6mlu7vA&t=1m41s Yes, the documentation is far from good. But the larger problem I find is that the 2 platforms are made from opposites points, and I don't see Xamarin glueing it together as magic. But you are right, the layouts and measurements even differ per api level as they get optimisations and are really complex. It would be awesome if Xamarin could combine both platforms native performs, but I don't see that happening :(

mwcampbell 12y ago

> I'm afraid the whole Xamarin thing won't solve "cross-platform" which isn't a real problem but sure. Its just another horse that Microsoft is betting on. Why do you say "cross-platform" isn't a real problem? It sure seems to me like mobile app developers need a way to share large chunks of their code, and possibly even some UI code, between platforms while still delivering native apps.

natfriedman 12y ago

Hey, I'm the CEO of Xamarin. I'm really sorry that you had a bad experience with Xamarin.Forms. Did you try doing native development with Xamarin? I do want to be clear that Xamarin.Forms is not Xamarin. It's a library that we built to help people quickly write very simple, data-entry style apps. That's why it's called "Forms." It's not intended to be highly performant or to replicate all the per-platform APIs in Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android. For that, you should use the native APIs. We have a little more information about that here: http://cdn1.xamarin.com/Architecture%20Selector.pdf http://cdn1.xamarin.com/Architecture%20Selector.pdf And the "What Xamarin approach is right for you?" section on the Xamarin.Forms page: http://xamarin.com/forms http://xamarin.com/forms Before release, we had internally called Xamarin.Forms "duplo," to emphasize that it was for childishly-simple apps and screens, but we couldn't use that (trademarked) name for the release, unfortunately. That said, of course we still want to address all the issues that you found with Forms. Would you mind dropping me an email - nat@xamarin.com?

bernadus_edwin 12y ago
I using xamarin in last 16 months From my experience, xamarin take wrong UI improvement strategy Dont get me wrong, this is a good product, i love it, but just going to wrong direction This is the big 2 mistakes: 1. You change the API class and method name to .net version For first time user, this is good approach, but i must rename every sample snippet code from stackoverflow You should save the resource for renaming API to something else more valueble ( hint : fixbug ) Are you rename the API because of patent and legal issue? 2. Xamarin form This is the worst strategy. Maybe this is good for B2B And maybe B2B is good money But for me, indie programmer, B2C product, i dont need xamarin form I need best approach to use UI library Stop xamarin form, there is other way to get 90 percent shared library Support more on MVVM cross Duplicate total of the xamarin component store Improvement object sharpie to support UIKit.h Object sharpie not working if using UI library Android binding still design for eclipse project, not android studio I'm wasting 1 week to bind ListViewAnimation android, and still not working My point is, it really hard to bind UI library on xamarin Conclusion, Please please turn around and go back to your real core value. We like native, improve native, do not recreate the UI component You know what happend when you try recreate UI? Go check java se and Qt