One downside of Xamarin apps is memory usage. Just launching our app uses >200mb of memory. After doing all we can to avoid memory leaks and excessive usage, we still crash regularly due to running out of memory. (part of this is due to a UIWebView)
Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
121–130 of 168 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#122If you already is an iOS dev I think it's easier to just also pick up android instead of Xamarin. Altough, Xamarin seems very nice and so on.
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hm, completely different experience here. I've been involved with three rather large Xamarin-Projects in the last year, and we were (team-wide) completely surprised at how much of the code can actually be shared, how our velocity compared to native development and the overall dev experience. I think the code sharing thing really comes down to how you're using Xamarin – if you keep on writing apps the way you're used…
I think it's going to entirely depend on what type of app you have. Much like your parent comment, my experience with building an app was that very little code could actually be shared. In my case we had some fanciful design that would largely have to be custom code for each platform. Thinks like API calls, validation, business logic could be shared but that was negligible compared to the platform specific code.
Yes, and that's always going to be the case with cross platform development. Fancy UI/UX is going to be highly platform dependent, while projects that have more model/controller code are going to be easily shared.
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you can build apps that are virtually indistinguishable from Swift/Java apps That is a very tall claim to make without any citations. All the cross-platform toolkits lag behind native swift/java apps by at least some margin, and the claim that JS indistinguishable from swift/Java is highly questionable.
How would you distinguish between the two if both are running above 60fps, which RN effortlessly can?
> which RN effortlessly can*
I respect RN and the engineering behind it, however how can it beat the raw, on-metal performance of Swift/Java? I'm not talking about CRUD/TODO list apps like https://li.st, but performance critical apps like Spotify etc. Facebooks own apps are written in native code, IIRC.
I would love to be proven wrong here, and it would be great if you can provide some sources.
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a rebranded Xamarin Studio, with a slightly updated layout to match VS. It feels much better on mac I must say, also tried it on Windows but just weird and slow. I'm quite happy with it, but maybe I'm biased a bit because it sucked big time and they made big improvements to it last year. It's all relative ;-).
Are you saying Visual Studio feels much better on mac? If you've tried it, is there a link to download so that I can try it out myself?
No Xamarin Studio on the mac vs on Windows. Logical I think because Windows has the real Visual Studio and Xamarin Studio Windows is based on GTK# (AFAIK, I think the mac UI is native Xam since last year) it is limited on the Windows side / feels quirky.
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#126Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#127Ionic 2 is a very promising hybrid approach. It's still in beta but should be out of it soon (better wait until it's released). The current beta version is quite fast. It has lots of components which are beautiful and has great support for ios, android and windows phone. It's JS (angular2) and html based.
Can you please point to an app built on this? I'm currently looking into hybrid apps and Ionic is probably the best option. It may be fast but not smooth though, e.g when scrolling or pulling a left side menu.
Our app Pacifica, http://thinkpacifica.com, is built on Ionic 1. It is currently showcased on both the Ionic and Cordova websites and we've see a fair amount of success with over a million registered users since launching last year.
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#128Yes it is worth learning. It's a skill which is quite in demand especially from established companies for their business applications. However, as others have pointed out, Xamarin Forms is a bit of let down. In my experience, if you try to create custom designed UI (which is quite common in the native apps), then you find that Xamarin Forms is very limited. To overcome this limitation you need to write something call…
FYI don't use x labs. It'd dead. Maintainer has left project and has joined Xamarin to work on improving forms.
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#129This is different than your circumstance but back when I was recruiting I helped a Xamarin developer with no professional experience find a gig with a 95K base salary. It's currently niche enough that people are willing to pay top dollar for anyone who can actually work in it. Another Xamarin developer I know consults for 150 an hour. (Although he's probably one of if not the best xamarin guy in Chicago)
95k base is indeed low. Severe undersupply of developers with deep mobile knowledge.
Whilst it's been years since the advent of mobile, most enterprise organisations are doing their first mobile project in 2016/2017. You can thank Gartner for that.
As for $150/hr on contract, I know someone who invoices more than that but you must be on your A game and be ready to teach, teach, teach.
There's nothing too special about Xamarin knowledge. Drop your Apple vs google fanboyisms, learn both platforms, learn MVVM, implement pure MVVM (don't fall back to singleton city).
If you know android/iOS well and are wondering where next to apply your six+ years of mobile development knowledge vs having to compete with comoditization and off shoring - this is it. With your deep knowledge and experience you will smash the existing talent in the market out of the park.
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a rebranded Xamarin Studio, with a slightly updated layout to match VS. It feels much better on mac I must say, also tried it on Windows but just weird and slow. I'm quite happy with it, but maybe I'm biased a bit because it sucked big time and they made big improvements to it last year. It's all relative ;-).
Are you saying Visual Studio feels much better on mac? If you've tried it, is there a link to download so that I can try it out myself?
Hi