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Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?

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Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?

#21

Post by miguelrochefort »

wsloth wrote: post #17

When using Xamarin I always get the feeling I'm writing Java code--but in C#. The cross-platform project is a blessing, it's truly amazing to be able to write code once and use it on all platforms (especially if you use Dependency Injection for even more sharing). The downside to this is that making a UI seems to even out your gained time--it's extremely messy and even complicated. Code that's valid in C# produces va…

> Some of the most used API's are not documented at all, simply having a "To be added" description.

I rarely find myself reading the Xamarin documentation, and mostly browse documentation and StackOverflow as if I was coding a native iOS/Android app. This works because the Xamarin wrapper is pretty much identical to native APIs.

Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?

#22

Post by egeozcan »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #15
calferreira wrote: post #10

I'm currently developing an app integrates Google APIs like SignIn and a google product that i plan to make available on all major platforms (Android,iOS,Windows). In the beginning, i thought about making a hybrid app, because it could save me time on the long run, but starting to developing with Cordova and EmberJS or even Xamarin was frustrating. My major reason for frustration is the tooling, cordova emulator just…

> Can they keep up to speed with Google,Apple and MS? Xamarin is Microsoft now.

You are right, on the other hand, Microsoft isn't famous for being able to keep up with itself (especially if you look at the number of deprecated ways of creating GUIs).

Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?

#23

Post by dep_b »

mathijs wrote: post #18

I've used Xamarin for several projects and I greatly regret that decision. Granted, most of my hatred is targeted towards Xamarin Studio and Xamarin.Forms so if you use Visual Studio and build only native UIs then maybe your experience will be better. However, in my experience, both Xamarin Studio and the build system are buggy as hell. Random or inexplicable build errors, things that break during updates, incompatib…

I can't find anybody that has done significant work with Forms and isn't complaining about it. It's giving the platform a really bad rep.

Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?

#24

Post by dep_b »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #16
zihotki wrote: post #2

MS stack developer I think yes, MS invests a lot into the Xamarin platform, so I expect it to become more stable and more developer friendly than it was before. I have a plenty of experience doing cross platform mobile development and I tried several other alternatives, Xamarin was actually the best - easy to start, easy to implement stuff, fast enough on mobiles, has a lot of components, etc. Also I would like to re…

XAML and MVVM are much nicer to work with then their iOS and Android equivalent. WPF/UWP/Xamarin.Forms are very underrated.

XAML and MVVM are awesome, but I wouldn't touch Forms with a ten foot pole. I really miss having something like the bindings like they work in WPF in Xcode

Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?

#26

Post by ParanoidShroom »

I loved C#, hated Xamarin forms. It was about a year ago no, but I doubt things have changed that much. There were just so sooo many bugs. I have nothing against them and still think .net is amazing, but that was such a worse experience. I think reactive will win though.

Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?

#28

Post by rogihee »

mathijs wrote: post #18

I've used Xamarin for several projects and I greatly regret that decision. Granted, most of my hatred is targeted towards Xamarin Studio and Xamarin.Forms so if you use Visual Studio and build only native UIs then maybe your experience will be better. However, in my experience, both Xamarin Studio and the build system are buggy as hell. Random or inexplicable build errors, things that break during updates, incompatib…

I have used both "native" Xamarin and Forms to build apps. Last year Xamarin had a really bad streak with stability but things have certainly improved.

Android itself has so much quirks in development in itself that it is sometimes impossible to abstract away. Xamarin just doesn't show this always so you're chasing the wrong ghost from time to time. Android development is simply madness.

I'm not gonna say Forms is perfect, far from it but it serves a purpose. With a little bit of work I could get everything going that needs to be done. As a single dev I can cover both platforms. If you have the resources go native Xamarin.

Xamarin Studio is actually not that bad, only it has become a bit of resource hog last weeks releases and needs the occosional restart. With the power of MS behind that should certainly be improved.

Xamarin.Forms is now open source, but I really hate that the PR's are slow to being reviewed and 1 contributer is outpacing the Xamarin team in his spare time. Clearly something is brewing, they must be working on something new. Or else they should ditch and start something else.

We'll hear about it in a few days.

Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?

#29

Post by T3RMINATED »

I've used Xamarin for several projects and I greatly regret that decision. Granted, most of my hatred is targeted towards Xamarin Studio and Xamarin.Forms so if you use Visual Studio and build only native UIs then maybe your experience will be better.

Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?

#30

Post by ghuntley »

Xamarin has unfortunately muddled their branding.

Xamarin Forms is not Xamarin, it is a DSL. You do not need to use it. At its core Xamarin is c# with pinvoke to the underlying native platform implementation. You'll still need that platform knowledge but now you can share the core business logic between platforms.

To get maximum code share you'll need a MVVM framework such as ReactiveUI which is based on the Reactive Extensions and modeled on functional reactive principals check out https://github.com/reactiveui/ReactiveUI/releases/tag/7.0.0 or http://reactiveui.net

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