21–30 of 68 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it significantly different from Visual Studio? How easily could a VS user transition to it? I think I'd be willing to drop $300 of my own money if I could put my many years of C# experience to work developing iOS and Android apps.
We just did a webinar about Xamarin Studio last week in case you're interested http://xamarin.wistia.com/medias/z797ghqlps
How much time will it save you? Lets imagine your current project to build an iOS and Android app of identical functionality you are estimating at 6 weeks for each platform. 12 total weeks. Lets say that Xamarin tech gives you a 10% boost (it will be much higher but lets be conservative), that means over the 60 business days, you get back 6. Assume you have 8 hours of work per day and you just bought 48 hours of your time. The basic license which does nearly everything most people need is the Indie license and $300 per platform. Six hundred dollars to buy 48 hours of your time back means the purchase is viable if you value your time at more than 12.50 per hour.
If you value your time less than that, you have bigger problems than which mobile tooling to use.
The truth is the productivity factor is much higher than 10% and the license is good for a year, pick up a couple other projects like this through the year and that number collapses. For me this year I will probably do 4 cross plat projects with Xamarin and my productivity diff is north of 50%. The purchase is a no brainer.
It's a common misconception that phonegap and cordova don't have the same access to native APIs. They do, but they are limited by what plugins are available, and your ability or interest to build ones to fill the "gap." For example, I wrote a plugin recently to send low-level broadcast UDP packets on Android and iOS through Cordova. The plugin API is just a bridge and sets up a calling convention for Javascript-to-na…
Personally I much prefer Ruby Motion to Xamarin. I like ruby more, it's a closer work flow to my standard python/django, Ruby/Rails based workflow (terminal and text editor based). Intellij provides a great ide (MUCH better than Xamarin studio, one of my least favorite IDE's all though visual studio is even better than intellij's offerings IMO). In version 3.0 they will offer Android support and at that point I think…
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 5% and 95%. :)
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…
Personally I much prefer Ruby Motion to Xamarin. I like ruby more, it's a closer work flow to my standard python/django, Ruby/Rails based workflow (terminal and text editor based). Intellij provides a great ide (MUCH better than Xamarin studio, one of my least favorite IDE's all though visual studio is even better than intellij's offerings IMO). In version 3.0 they will offer Android support and at that point I think…
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…
I realize that the difference of $700 could be made up in improved development performance but I really, really wish they'd allow VS support for the indie license. It's not a case of saving more it's a risk/reward thing for me. I can see the possible value but, without being able to pick it up quickly in an environment I know I can't justify either spending an extra $700 or picking up another IDE/workspace along with…
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.
The Xamarin toolchain has steadily improved and its PCL support makes a lot of things a lot easier, but I can't envision a use case where I would want to do my development in their IDE. I keep a Windows machine just to have VS so I can do the 90% case there and suffer through the 10% in XS.
Personally I much prefer Ruby Motion to Xamarin. I like ruby more, it's a closer work flow to my standard python/django, Ruby/Rails based workflow (terminal and text editor based). Intellij provides a great ide (MUCH better than Xamarin studio, one of my least favorite IDE's all though visual studio is even better than intellij's offerings IMO). In version 3.0 they will offer Android support and at that point I think…
In fact, every app in the Apple app store is statically compiled. App store guidelines prohibit dynamic code generation, preventing the use of a JIT compiler: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21689993/xamarin-ahead-of...
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…
It amazes me that you've completely missed out on some of the reasons for people complaining about the cost. My comment is one you're railing against and I think you're off base. Even going by your factor of time, I have to bet $1,000 that this product will be worth both that money and the time that I have to put into learning and dealing with it. There's no VS trail (as far as I know). So other than going off of blo…
You are right, there is a factor of learning that needs to be baked into your consideration but there comes a point where you put a little trust in people who came before you and tell you 'I have done this, I have been where you are - follow me and you will be fine'.
On the flip side, Nat Friedman is incredibly approachable. I am sure if you simply email him and tell him your concerns he will accommodate you with a longer trial period or some kind of money back guarantee, that just how he is.
It's a common misconception that phonegap and cordova don't have the same access to native APIs. They do, but they are limited by what plugins are available, and your ability or interest to build ones to fill the "gap." For example, I wrote a plugin recently to send low-level broadcast UDP packets on Android and iOS through Cordova. The plugin API is just a bridge and sets up a calling convention for Javascript-to-na…