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Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

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Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#381

Post by scholia »

niels_olson wrote: post #117
shanselman wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. ;)

I look forward to that. However, after 20 years of bad behavior, it's not unfair to be guarded for a long time after that. Does cancer relapse? Does alcoholism relapse? How about the politics of Russia? How long did democracy last? I applaud your efforts. The road is yet long.

It's actually after 15 or more years of generally good behaviour. After the anti-trust case, Microsoft spent a decade under the close supervision of the US DoJ, as well as the supervision of the EU (with an eye to imposing large fines if possible).

I expect it's done things you (and me) don't like in the past 15 years. However, the same goes for Apple, Google, IBM and Oracle. Microsoft hasn't been the least ethical of that lot.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#382

Post by wehadfun »

MrBra wrote: post #188
ta_donk_gt wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Works quite well" is a phrase I've never used with Xamarin. I stopped using it about a year ago for two reasons: (1) _every_single_release_ would break my apps and would then require spending inordinate amounts of time trying to get things building again, and (2) I could no longer justify paying for the professional edition just to be able to use Visual Studio on my hobby projects. I am very much hoping that both of…

Relevant http://www.estaun.net/blog/some-thoughts-after-almost-a-year...

Thanks I was looking for a good review of Xmarian.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#383

Post by devdenver »

As a Xamarin subscriber, I'm guessing the future success of the merger (and product future) depends on:

1) addressing the price-point, 2) core clr integration, 3) retaining the top engineering talent at Xamarin, 4) addressing the iOS designer-specific issues

A couple notes:

For most LOB apps, I'm not convinced the code re-use is significant. The bulk of work is in the interface and navigation which is, necessarily, handled by coding android / ios specifics. Despite noble effort, the iOS design essentially needs to be done in xcode (point 4 above).

The build/release process is and (presumably) always will be locked behind the gates of technology's North Korea (Apple). They can throw a switch and restrict 3rd party runtimes if and when they choose.

For businesses in the 5-100 million range, writing an expense app in 2017, MSDN Xamarin should be a logical choice - but it has to be a platform with the reliability of .NET and a simple cross-platform designer. For app-centric startups, games, POS systems, etc. - it's probably a bad move.

For msft devs (and we are aging) it's win-win. The lure of C# gets you into mobile dev, and you will learn iOS and Android in the process.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#384

Post by bunderbunder »

mda wrote: post #353
bunderbunder wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He'd been pretty buddy-buddy with Microsoft for a while. Microsoft has owned patents on the underlying technology, but as far as I'm aware they never did anything to indicate that they might sue Ximian or Xamarin. As far as I can tell, the bulk of the concern about Mono stems from FUD-spreading by RMS.

I think Stallman's concerns regarding the subject were / are perfectly valid.

They aren't entirely invalid, though interestingly the only times something like this has ever happened were around that Java platform, not .NET. And yet, even though they're the ones who are notable for actually trying to do so, nobody worries too much about trusting Oracle not to try and torpedo any open source ecosystems for profit.

Which is why I'm inclined to think of it as FUD-spreading. It's not about a balanced assessment of the strategic risks involved in using a particular open source product so much as it's about how one company in particular has been mythologized into something approaching a Lovecraftian horror in the minds of many members of a particular subculture.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#385

Post by scholia »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #305
hngiszmo wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

those were aquisitions by Google. Now a list of Microsoft:

Onenote

Not bought in, I think....

"OneNote started as an email exchange between myself and Steven Sinofsky, the Senior VP for Office, Nov 27, 2000."

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chris_pratley/archive/2004/01/30/one...

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#386

Post by migueldeicaza »

EvanPlaice wrote: post #220
davidw wrote: post #29

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

Kinda funny how things work out. Back when MS broadcasted OSX/ nix compatibility for Visual Studio I felt it necessary to comment that .NET development has been supported in OSX/ nix for over a decade. In short, Miguel De Icaza should be awarded a medal from MS for his heroic effort in developing the Mono platform and tooling; in spite of the constant threat of legal action from Microsoft for 'patent infringement' of…

Thank you for the kind words and the perspective.

Luckily, we will be joining a new Microsoft (pending regulatory approval), one lead by Satya which has a different vision for the company. We are excited about what this means for Xamarin's products, for our customers, for our users, for our employees, but most of all, we are excited about what we can achieve inside Microsoft for all of Microsoft's customers, and the rapidly growing open source community around .NET.

Cheers! Miguel

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#387

Post by shanselman »

mistermann wrote: post #295
shanselman wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. ;)

Scott, any word on the inside on whether Excel is going to ever get some major enhancements? The object model desperately needs an improvement, and the ability to write VBA with C# would be spectacular.

Not sure I understand. You've been able to make C# Excel Addins for a long time now (file new | office addin) and you can also write add-ins in JavaScript as well.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#389

Post by hnbroseph »

rpgmaker wrote: post #378
Maarten88 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

would it hurt to qualify anything, or is this just your current emotional state?

Re: Microsoft Acquires Xamarin

#390

Post by cbd1984 »

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. ;)

Yep, now they show full-screen ads on the OS itself. Huge improvement.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11167964

I'm sure there are Officially no privacy implications here.

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