Microsoft Acquires Xamarin • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#201

Post by khattam » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:30 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.

Most likely, they are going to kill whatever was left of it.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#202

Post by profquail » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:30 PM UTC

moonchrome wrote: post #193

.NET now needs a solid compile-to-browser story - which is presumably coming with some future version of web assembly (initial version doesn't support GC or threads) I'm looking forward to the day where I can ditch C++ for portability - .NET really is an ideal replacement for most apps - you can write apps that don't stress the GC by using value types and can control memory layouts relatively well (unlike Java) and a…

What about WebSharper? It's solid, open source (Apache 2.0) and they're working on adding C# support for the next major version:

http://www.websharper.com/

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#203

Post by cm2187 » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:31 PM UTC

snoman wrote: post #174

cm2187 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather integrate it in visual studio.

VS integration was recently re-written and re-released. I still use XS, but I hear the VS integration is now pretty solid.

I meant as part of the main distribution

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#204

Post by luckydata » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:31 PM UTC

niels_olson wrote: post #30

Avalaxy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes indeed, right now Xamarin is very very buggy and also pretty slow. I think the software will get MUCH better if the teams at Microsoft will start working on it.

or its embrace extend extinguish?

there's nothing to extinguish here, just a clever but buggy technology that never took off.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#205

Post by martin-adams » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:32 PM UTC

nodamage wrote: post #110

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.

I think if Microsoft want to attract developers to building for Windows (including phones and tablets), then adding first class support in Xamarin and reducing the licensing fees would be a huge win.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#206

Post by ZenoArrow » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:32 PM UTC

JBReefer wrote: post #60

ealexhudson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS already have one; Visual Studio Code. The crazy has been coming a while.

Visual Studio Code doesn't do an eighth of what VS 2015 does. VS 2015 on Linux with a full CLR would be huge. Think about the opportunities for existing enterprise programmers, alone.

It would be great to use Visual Studio on other platforms, but it's unlikely to happen any time soon (unless Microsoft have been working on it in secret). Visual Studio is a Win32 application, we haven't even seen a 64-bit version of it yet, I'd expect to see Visual Studio become a 64-bit WPF application before it becomes cross-platform.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#207

Post by ZenoArrow » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:36 PM UTC

moonchrome wrote: post #193

.NET now needs a solid compile-to-browser story - which is presumably coming with some future version of web assembly (initial version doesn't support GC or threads) I'm looking forward to the day where I can ditch C++ for portability - .NET really is an ideal replacement for most apps - you can write apps that don't stress the GC by using value types and can control memory layouts relatively well (unlike Java) and a…

> ".NET now needs a solid compile-to-browser story"

You can compile .NET code to JavaScript using JSIL:

http://jsil.org/

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#208

Post by joelbugarini » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:36 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #29

Miguel finally gets his job at Microsoft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Icaza#Early_software... Congrats!

As a Mexican it rise my spirit, I'm very happy for Icaza and for the project! Perfect timing for microsoft in the open source strategy.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#209

Post by cm3 » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:38 PM UTC

Congrats. Since Nat and Miguel met while applying to work at Microsoft and then went on to build GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) with major help from Federico, which was inspired by Microsoft COM, hence the name, it's nice they finally managed to join Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#210

Post by jordz » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:42 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. ;)

Such win Scott.