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Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

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Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#371

Post by hipsterrific »

tmarman wrote: post #176
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.

This makes me happy, and hopefully it's just available as a base part of Visual Studio / part of all MSDN subscriptions. I loved Xamarin in principle before, but the price tag was steep. I inherited a Xamarin app on one project - and while there were certainly some issues here and there, the promise of native cross-platform app development and shared C# libraries is pretty compelling. I said a few years ago that this…

I wouldn't be surprised if they give it away for free. Microsoft has other revenue streams that it can use (VS Pro, MSDN, Office, Mac Builds, Azure).

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#372

Post by iLoch »

moonchrome wrote: post #234
junto wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Xamarin compile the C# to native? Isn't this an apples to oranges comparison?

I'm not talking about execution performance - I'm talking faster to develop for. It might be faster to get "hello world" running in JS but once you have a few people working on a project and need to do nontrivial stuff not provided by "JS framework X" (in this case React) you'll see the value of having sane language semantics, static typing, tools and a mature ecosystem (much higher quality than JS).

These tools exist in Javacript. I'm not saying C# is inferior at all, but JS is not inferior to C# here. TypeScript/Flow are backwards compatible with JS so you can add static typing to your JS at any time.

React Native is capable of doing anything a native runtime can do because it too is native.

High quality tools do now exist that bring type checking, Intellisense, hot module replacement, etc.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#373

Post by iLoch »

mixedCase wrote: post #309
iLoch wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

React Native applications will be faster to develop thanks to React being inherently fast to develop. I would expect a React Native app to perform the same or better than Xamarin, due to React Native's asynchronous bridge approach. I don't have data to back this up, though.

I have tried some React Native demos and they all performed slower than similar Xamarin demos. Better than HTML5 is still not good enough.

I'd like to see what demos you're referring to. React Native runs as 60fps. It's native code, so if there's any problems with performance it's not JS that's the issue.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#375

Post by momozaur »

swalsh wrote: post #179
Animats wrote: post #149

Scary. Xamarin sells tools to support multi-platform app development. Microsoft would want that only to the extent that it assisted migration to Microsoft platforms. Not away from them.

You're thinking of old Microsoft. New Microsoft is all about Azure, the walled gardens of windows is slowly being left behind. Take a look at .NET Core.

Oh please. Old Microsoft!? Sure, we all know there have been changes in management but you think that everything got changed just because they did OSS some technologies? Second, since when OSS is such a big deal? That's only a big deal to MS because world has changed a lot while MS hold still for a long time.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#377

Post by OJFord »

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. ;)

Skype? Sunrise?

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#378

Post by rpgmaker »

Maarten88 wrote: post #102
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.

> I think it can become the best alternative to the javascript world

Ugh no. Professionally, I would have a lot to gain from that as a developer but in general that would be an awful turn of events. Long term it would be a net negative for the world and we all should know better by now.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#379

Post by douche »

KirinDave wrote: post #286
maxxxxx wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of these are good technologies if you want to stay up-to-date. You could also write your site in IE6 compatible HTML which was quite mature but that seems a really bad idea.

That's not a reasonable comparison at all. Winforms is maintained. IE6 is explicitly deprecated.

And WinForms is never really going to go away as long as Windows is still built around the Win32 API.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#380

Post by enraged_camel »

teh_klev wrote: post #314
enraged_camel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Nonsense. The last 5 years show it's a whole new Microsoft Yeah, that's why Windows 10 sends all your data to Microsoft by default and Windows updates no longer come with detailed explanations of what is in them. /s edit: judging by the downvotes, there's a surprising number of Microsoft fanboys here. I guess all they had to do to win people over was make a few token contributions to the open-source community...

> judging by the downvotes, there's a surprising number of Microsoft fanboys here. Seriously, do we need to lower the content level of discussion here to "fanboy" camp accusations, it's not productive. Also, please review the guidelines: Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or announce that y…

Please stop backseat modding. If you have a problem with a comment, flag it and it will be reviewed. Thanks.
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