For context I'm a day to day iOS developer. However I'd like to quickly be able to make cross platform applications, and React Native is apparently lacking for Android.
Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
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Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#2MS stack developer
I think yes, MS invests a lot into the Xamarin platform, so I expect it to become more stable and more developer friendly than it was before. I have a plenty of experience doing cross platform mobile development and I tried several other alternatives, Xamarin was actually the best - easy to start, easy to implement stuff, fast enough on mobiles, has a lot of components, etc.
Also I would like to recommend to focus more on Xamarin.Forms, it's using more modern approach. XAML (it's a xml-derived language) is actually quite good for writing UI part. Add there some MVVM framework and you'd love it.
Edit: fixed spelling
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#3If you want to develop cross platform mobile apps your only other option seems to be React Native. I'd like to see a good rundown of the pros and cons of each approach.
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#4Ionic 2 is a very promising hybrid approach. It's still in beta but should be out of it soon (better wait until it's released). The current beta version is quite fast. It has lots of components which are beautiful and has great support for ios, android and windows phone. It's JS (angular2) and html based.
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#5If you want to develop cross platform mobile apps your only other option seems to be React Native. I'd like to see a good rundown of the pros and cons of each approach.
There also is Delphi with the mobile Addon. https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#6Ruby Motion vs React Native vs Xamarin vs Native (Java/Swift) is a question I have all the time. All look interesting and worth learning
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#7I tried Xamarin once for a macOS application. I migrated a Forms application by extracting all logic that I could from Forms-specific (code behind files) into more generic classes.
Then I had a .dll that I could use in my Xamarin project. The Xamarin project was razor thin and I only used C# to connect my XIBs or Storyboard (I forgot what I used, but it was in Interface Builder) to the existing .dll calls and a specific type of hardware scanner.
The hardest part was getting that scanner to work, which would be not so easy for me even in Objective-C. But I basically had to create an Objective-C wrapper wrapped in some kind of C# wrapper. It wasn't easy but it was doable.
The hardest part was getting everything signed correctly, since I was using all kinds of layers you usually wouldn't use in "just software" project.
The overall experience was really good despite that the native editor for macOS wasn't that spectacular. I did the meat of my programming in Visual Studio and Visual Studio is a really great tool. Another part was done in Interface Builder which is a great tool in my opinion.
A friend uses it a lot for a cross-platform app written in Xamarin Forms. The thing with Forms is that unless you keep it simple you will run into Xamarin bugs, iOS specific bugs or Android specific bugs in your layouts and that can be challenging sometimes.
I would say that if you would make the UI in native code or storyboards and it still seems like an attractive idea to use Xamarin, use Xamarin. Don't use Forms.
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#8If you want to develop cross platform mobile apps your only other option seems to be React Native. I'd like to see a good rundown of the pros and cons of each approach.
There are tons of cross-platform mobile application frameworks ranging from Qt to Unity, Marmalade to probably hundreds of web-based solutions.
What Xamarin and React Native have in common is (partly) using native UI layers for building the interfaces, perhaps you wanted to specifically address frameworks doing that?
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#9We've been working lately with React Native and Exponent (getexponent.com) and we've had an amazing experience. The apps resulting have a great experience and performance. Vue.js and Angular are also making progress towards the Native world. I honestly don't think hybrid apps are going to be a think 2 years from now (of course I could be wrong, this is just an opinion).
Re: Ask HN: Is Xamarin worth learning?
#10I'm currently developing an app integrates Google APIs like SignIn and a google product that i plan to make available on all major platforms (Android,iOS,Windows).
In the beginning, i thought about making a hybrid app, because it could save me time on the long run, but starting to developing with Cordova and EmberJS or even Xamarin was frustrating.
My major reason for frustration is the tooling, cordova emulator just sucks (Ripple?) and working with javascript mvc frameworks isn't just for me (too complex IMHO).
Xamarin on VS has some bugs that would only go away if i restarted the IDE in order for things to work. Also, i'm concerning about being dependant to a third party framework.Can they keep up to speed with Google,Apple and MS?
Another valid concern is app size distribution that seems to be considerably higher with cordova and Xamarin.
Since i started on Android, using Android Studio made my life a lot easier and i'm progressing daily and enjoying it, something that was a PITA with other tools.
In my experience i would say that it will be more time consuming (expensive) to develop a single solution for each platform as well as giving support, but the tooling is a lot better, also you can give users a better experience because you end up developing native apps for each platform that can take better advantage of it's ecosystem.
I'll find out in the future if i'm right or wrong.