Microsoft Acquires Xamarin • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#101

Post by pekk » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 8:07 PM UTC

shanselman wrote: post #85

niels_olson wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or its embrace extend extinguish?

Nonsense. The last 5 years show it's a whole new Microsoft. Disclaimer: I have been one of the ones pushing the last 5 years to make that statement true. ;)

Except for Microsoft's lawyers who are still using patents against Linux. Same old Microsoft.

Is it even possible for you guys to kill the undead SCO monster now? At any rate, it's still working away.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#102

Post by Maarten88 » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 8:08 PM UTC

JBReefer wrote: post #16

This is giant news for the .NET ecosystem. It means that MS is serious about their push into Mobile and Linux, and that .NET developers aren't going to have to work with Xamarin's ever-so-slightly-behind libraries anymore. It also means that MS now produces an IDE on Linux, which is a crazy change from 10 years ago.

When the integration is done, we'll have Dotnet Core targeting Windows, OSX, Linux, Android and iOS. There will be frameworks for serverside and clientside applications.

I think it can become the best alternative to the javascript world, which already can target all these, but needs all kinds of native support and is much less solid as a language.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#103

Post by TheLogothete » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 8:08 PM UTC

nelp wrote: post #70

Wonder what this means for Xamarin University? Shouldn't that be made available for free on Channel9?

You can get a few months free to dev esssentials right now.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#104

Post by hokkos » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 8:08 PM UTC

Sir_Substance wrote: post #86

littlegreenb18 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't apply here. This is a strategic purchase for Microsoft. They have no competing technology. That was in reference to standards. Microsoft wanted to turn open standards into proprietary standards to drive people toward their products.

...Xamarin studio isn't a competitor to Visual Studio? That's all I know that Xamarin makes, so I think this article is going a bit over my head, but it'll be a shame if I suddenly need a Microsoft account to use it. I do like diversity in my language tooling.

Visual Studio doesn't run on Mac OS to make iOS apps, VS Code is still only an editor not an IDE. So Xamarin could be very useful for MS.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#105

Post by cm2187 » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 8:09 PM UTC

vyrotek wrote: post #23

I imagine .NET devs around the world are rejoicing (myself included). I hope this means access to Xamarin through existing MSDN and BizSpark subscriptions.

Rather integrate it in visual studio.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#106

Post by fancy_pantser » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 8:09 PM UTC

solutionyogi wrote: post #10

As someone who works in .NET ecosystem, this is HUGE. I think there is huge synergy [1] to be exploited by combining Xamarin's team with language/compiler design/visual studio team. I think MS is extremely well positioned to be a leading development platform across desktop/web/mobile in the enterprise space with this acquisition. [1] Never thought I would ever use that word in a comment.

You're assuming this won't be the "before" post in a post on ourincrediblejourney.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#107

Post by RUG3Y » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 8:10 PM UTC

I really love the C# language and I'll be really excited if this means that C# is a better choice for non-Windows platforms down the road.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#108

Post by smellf » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 8:12 PM UTC

nacs wrote: post #93

JBReefer wrote: post #16

This is giant news for the .NET ecosystem. It means that MS is serious about their push into Mobile and Linux, and that .NET developers aren't going to have to work with Xamarin's ever-so-slightly-behind libraries anymore. It also means that MS now produces an IDE on Linux, which is a crazy change from 10 years ago.

> It means that MS is serious about their push into Mobile and Linux Mobile OK but Linux? Currently on the HN frontpage theres an article about how Skype for Linux hasn't been updated for years and "is unable to join calls": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11165568

Exactly. It probably means that in 1-5 years, the C# experience on Linux is going to go way downhill. Extend embrace extinguish.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#109

Post by ed_blackburn » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 8:12 PM UTC

This has been coming for a long while. Lots of synergy. I'm not so interested in the client aspect, which is where I suspect Microsoft will gain most, but more in the synergy / potential convergence of Mono / CoreCLR.

Good luck and well done to Miguel et al.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#110

Post by nodamage » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 8:13 PM UTC

I wonder when/if they will announce pricing changes. I would love to use Xamarin but the current licensing fees (2 developers across iOS/Mac/Android) of $6k/year are a total non-starter. If it gets rolled into MSDN or BizSpark I would pretty much jump on it immediately. The current alternative of writing C++ that runs across iOS/Mac/Android/Windows is a massive headache.