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Why choose Xamarin?

pauloortins.com

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Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#61

Post by EShy »

Glide wrote: post #40
keithwarren wrote: post #22

It amazes me that the constant complaint on here is the price. Seriously folks, if you are a professional developer (by that I mean your primary ability to earn money for you and your family is the development of software) then the cost of a Xamarin license should be looked at as a factor of time. How much time will it save you? Lets imagine your current project to build an iOS and Android app of identical functional…

To add to this: think about the target market for this. It's not the person who knows objective-c and wants to make an Android app. It's not the person who knows Java and wants to make an iOS app. It's the person who already knows .NET and wants to make an app for either of those platforms. I guess I also made a fundamental mistake in the above sentences. It's not a person, but rather a business that is looking at it…

If I'm not mistaken, MSDN subscribers (not BizSpark though) also get a discount on Xamarin licenses (or maybe it was just their university learning subscription)

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#62

Post by declan »

revelation wrote: post #26
declan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! I wasn't aware of that announcement. Last month's blog post says: "If you have a RubyMotion app for iOS or OS X and want to port it to Android, you can even share some of the code." ( http://blog.rubymotion.com/post/87048665656/rubymotion-3-0-s... ) I haven't used Ruby Motion myself -- do you know how much of the code can be reused excluding platform-specific UI stuff? There's a significant difference between…

From the blog post, that seems like a rather perilous approach.. what are the chances they get all the builtin Ruby stuff to work the same way despite basing it on Java equivalents?

And what are the chances they get all the Android Ruby stuff to work perfectly in the initial release? As opposed to 6 months later after the bug fixes are deployed; hope you didn't have a release window for that fall 2014 app!

(Perhaps I'm overly cynical, though I've seen this before on other platforms.)

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#63

Post by jstedfast »

eropple wrote: post #27
pauloortins wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried Xamarin Studio? It's not as good as Visual Studio but it's a very decent IDE. I'm currently using it instead Visual Studio.

I disagree. The core write-your-code experience is full of jank, to the point where I have wondered in the past whether the XS folks develop it in XS. Its smart indentation isn't smart (randomly indenting another three levels, not being smart enough to stick to the indent level I pick when I backspace to where I want it--next line, back out there again!) and occasionally the text widget will "lose" a line of text and…

Everyone on the Xamarin Studio team uses Xamarin Studio to develop Xamarin Studio.

Smart Indent, afaik, has been fixed. The problem you describe was only an issue for multi-line lambdas, iirc.

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#64

Post by sschalk »

rational-future wrote: post #34

The big question IMHO is will Microsoft buy Xamarin or not. If they do the price will certainly fall drastically. On one hand it will give MS way more apps on their app store. On the other if Xamarin becomes very popular Apple may block Xamarin built apps from it's app store.

I don't think they will. They just integrated Cordova into VS 2014 ootb.

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#65

Post by WorldWideWayne »

mjt0229 wrote: post #33
keithwarren wrote: post #22

It amazes me that the constant complaint on here is the price. Seriously folks, if you are a professional developer (by that I mean your primary ability to earn money for you and your family is the development of software) then the cost of a Xamarin license should be looked at as a factor of time. How much time will it save you? Lets imagine your current project to build an iOS and Android app of identical functional…

Here's the problem: it's too expensive to learn on my own, and I can't advocate for C#, F# or Mono without already being an expert. Yes, I am a professional software engineer, and I support my family that way. But I have other expenses and interests, too, and blowing money on a compiler/IDE/platform just so I can play with it in my spare time doesn't really work for me. Think of it another way: how do you plan to gro…

Here's what I would do if I wanted to learn these tools really well before paying for them: Grab a VM and make a snapshot right before I install the 30 day trial and then just reset to the snapshot every 30 days and reinstall the trial.

You can do the same thing with a trial of Windows which actually lasts anywhere from 90 to 180 days or something.

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#66

Post by jaegerpicker »

declan wrote: post #62
revelation wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the blog post, that seems like a rather perilous approach.. what are the chances they get all the builtin Ruby stuff to work the same way despite basing it on Java equivalents?

And what are the chances they get all the Android Ruby stuff to work perfectly in the initial release? As opposed to 6 months later after the bug fixes are deployed; hope you didn't have a release window for that fall 2014 app! (Perhaps I'm overly cynical, though I've seen this before on other platforms.)

Actually I'd say pretty good as their software has been really high quality so far. That and the fact that JRuby already exists and I'm pretty sure thats the target runtime, a lot of their work is already pretty solid.

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#67

Post by eropple »

jstedfast wrote: post #63
eropple wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The core write-your-code experience is full of jank, to the point where I have wondered in the past whether the XS folks develop it in XS. Its smart indentation isn't smart (randomly indenting another three levels, not being smart enough to stick to the indent level I pick when I backspace to where I want it--next line, back out there again!) and occasionally the text widget will "lose" a line of text and…

Everyone on the Xamarin Studio team uses Xamarin Studio to develop Xamarin Studio. Smart Indent, afaik, has been fixed. The problem you describe was only an issue for multi-line lambdas, iirc.

The line issue pops up for me in regular control for blocks and I'm using the most recent beta (which I'm uncomfortable doing but had to do to get anywhere). My indenting still gets very confused anywhere I have #if blocks.

You know I like you guys, I loved doing GSoC with Mono and I wouldn't have interviewed over there if i didn't like what you're trying to do, but these issues make it really hard recommend Xamarin. Having my IDE make me legitimately mad is a bummer.

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#68

Post by wongwf82 »

sochinochi wrote: post #55
atwebb wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, now I feel like my reply was way too snarky. I'll give the XS IDE a try and I want to be clear to any Xamarin/dev folks reading here, I in no way think all this stuff should be free. I just see that as a limiting barrier and, judging by the comments here and elsewhere, so do others. I appreciate your reply and insight, thanks!

We recently introduced pricing for SMBs and Start Ups. You can shoot an email to hello@xamarin.com if interested.

How does one become Xamarin certified from Australia/Malaysia?
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