- Having an open source alternative like this will be a blow to Phonegap's/Apache Cordova's use for new apps.
- The change in Mono's licensing means Unity may finally upgrade to a newer version of Mono.
- Let's not forget Microsoft now owns RoboVM. I wonder what this event implies for it.
The edge that cordova/phonegap/ionic will retain is the HTML and CSS part. As well as, at least for a little while, a more robust plugin ecosystem. Though that second one will change VERY rapidly.
The other developers on my team are very much frontend & CSS types.
I would be too much of a bottleneck if I were the only developer able to write the code for the app.
If xamarin were free when I started, I may have given it more time in evaluation, but at the end of the day, I think that the choice would have remained ionic.
Even react-native isn't ready yet if you're a windows based shop. But maybe that's come along in the last couple months too.
Getting native performance would be a big differentiator. Hopefully, Ionic/Angular 2.0 will go a long way to improving performance.
For as far as I trace the code, the only part I can't really optimize is the db open commands
For the most part it's pretty slick, but I can still feel it. It could be faster.
My database is also very simple. If you have a complicated schema with lots of joins, it'll be tough to cache things and keep it in sync with the db.
Feel free to email me, if you want more details on this concept.
Don't forget, Facebook's annual developer conference F8 is coming up next (April 12th 2016). They will surely have some new announcements in a few weeks.
That was never an issue other than Unity's unwillingness to pay to the company that helped them gain market share.
Before Unity added PC support and Mono into their engine they were yet another company trying to sell a game's engine.
Taking into account developer salaries, how much money have they already invested into IL2CPP vs paying for new licenses?
Unity was going to go C++ back in the day when Flash/Non-AOT code was being blocked in iOS 3.3.1. [1] I actually wish pure C++ was an option for Unity. Being C++ at build allows Unity to control it's destiny a little more and I am sure the 3.3.1 thing with Apple influenced that.
[1] http://blogs.unity3d.com/2010/07/02/unity-and-ios-4-0-update...
One interesting aspect is that they make use of C++ inline declarations when doing the JavaScript vs C++ examples, without explaining that there are semantic differences between writing the code like that or .h/.cpp files.
HTML+CSS means we don't have to retrain our web developers but can still produce work for our clients that meets their needs.
Personally, I'd like to go more native and xamarin could enable that, but in consideration for the team holistically, HTML&CSS&js was the way to go.
Really? Do you think Zuckerberg is now shaking in his boots thinking Facebook will have to pull out of React Native?
> - Let's not forget Microsoft now owns RoboVM. I wonder what this event implies for it.
Thank you for noting this. It is potentially interesting to Clojurians since Clojure targets the JVM (would be cool if Clojure could be used for cross platform native app development with RoboVM, as an alternative to a convoluted mess of trying to use ClojureScript with React Native).
It's likely that Unity hasn't done any of these things because they need support. This might help, but I'd be unsurprised if the Unity situation stayed the same as it has been for the last few years.
It's well possible to statically link LGPL library and non-free proprietary code. You just have to provide end-users a way relink with their own builds of said LGPL library (i.e. give them an .a file with all your proprietary bits, and, if you're nice, a linker invocation command). Yes, this is some significant hassle to set up two-step linking (unless you don't really care about not revealing the internal structure - if you don't, you can just throw a bunch of .objs), but not a complete game-stopper.
Here what FSF says about this:
> If you statically link against an LGPL'd library, you must also provide your application in an object (not necessarily source) format, so that a user has the opportunity to modify the library and relink the application
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LGPLStaticVsDynamic
So, I think it's probably Apple ToS. I forgot about those.