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Comment by vailripper | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious about Xamarin - has anyone used it, in addition to something like Phonegap / Appcelerator? How does it compare?

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Xamarin tools are built around the idea that the core of every application tend to be platform independent and so could be written in C# (or F#). This gets compiled into native code on some platforms (iOS). Their approach is to build native apps that use the native UI design tools, so for each platform, you have to re-design its UI to follow the UI paradigms of that particular platform.

The result is still compelling: the UI is native, the underlying code is common on all platforms, you get to use 100% of your platform technical capabilities, the app runs as fast as native apps, you get the power of .Net development tools (even Visual Studio if you want) and all the cool features of C# 5.0 (and F#) to build your apps.

Xamarin, through Mono and its mobile development tools is actually building what Microsoft promised but never really delivered: platform independence for .Net (OS/X, iOS, Windows, WinRT, Android, Linux).

Are Xamarin tools really the holy grail of cross-platform app development? What are the hidden gotchas?

What about MonoDevelop for the desktop? The Windows and Mac download packages are at v4 but Linux at v2.6. Are Xamarin slowly abandoning use of GTK# ? Is this because of GTK 2 v 3 fragmentation?

Should we be supporting C++ and QT given that QT now supports iOS and Android? Given that some developers are scared of C++ what about C# / F# with QT QML? Are there any bindings which are maintained and tracking QT updates?

Xamarin doesn't provide its products on Linux. But it doesn't mean MonoDevelop doesn't work there. The latest versions run on it, it's just a matter that we don't have the manpower to keep up with packaging.

On GTK+ 2, it's still the main toolkit used by the IDE, but on windows/mac some bits of the native toolkits are used to improve the user experience.

QT on iOS and Android means you get non-native UIX. So why bother with C++?

Disclaimer: I work for Xamarin.

disclaimer: using Xamarin, using MvvmCross and went to Evolve 2013.

- Write your core business logic API once (in a Portable Class Library) using the ModelView ViewModel pattern.

- Design native user interfaces for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows Phone 7.x, Windows Phone 8.x, Windows Store (RT and Desktop) and Windows WPF.

- Bind your user interfaces against the core business logic.

Multiple platforms, native user interface designed for each platform, sharing one core business library, maximum code reuse (90%+!), using either C# or F# with async/await/linq/lambdas/anonymous types, etc.

You can use Visual Studio or MonoDevelop.

Rewriting your business logic multiple times over in different languages to target multiple platforms does not make sense. I'm curious why would anyone not use Xamarin?

Evolve 2013 Videos: http://xamarin.com/evolve/2013

Recommended ModelView ViewModel Frameworks: https://github.com/slodge/MvvmCross or http://www.reactiveui.net/

Disclaimer, I know the Xamarin founders. That being said, I haven't used Xamarin, but I was impressed to see that rdio uses it.

Previously, I had assumed that the point of Xamarin was a way for C# developers to make iphone apps. However, my understanding was that rdio uses it so they can reuse the same C# code across their iPhone and Android apps. Rdio raised $17M in funding and could easily hire native iOS developers if they wanted to.

The net result is that rdio is actually one of the better iphone apps that I use, and I was really surprised to learn that it wasn't written in objective-C.

Top .net devs are paid more than iOS devs. Because they are paid high salaries by banks and corporations.

Mid tier developers not so much.

Are there many C# jobs in San Francisco?

I have no idea about the specifics of the San Francisco job market. I live in the UK, which can be biased towards finance.

Not really.

PhoneGap and Appcelerator are for building apps in HTML/CSS/JS. Xamarin lets you write apps in C# (statically compiled to native code, in the case of iOS, last I checked) that interact directly with native OS APIs.

also phonegap is free, while xamarin.android and xamarin.ios have high license costs for developer and platform

https://store.xamarin.com/

Not the whole story... Xamarin have a Starter Edition that is free for both platforms; admittedly with limitations (maximum app size, no linking with 3rd party code other than Xamarin provided assemblies and the iOS SDK). Within those limitation, you can publish to the App Store with the Starter Edition (obviously you need a Mac as well for iOS). The Indie Edition drops both of those limitations for USD299 per annum, which is reasonably affordable from my perspective. (Disclaimer: I have paid for the Business Edition; USD999 per annum, which adds the ability to use Visual Studio and a few other things).

That's 300 dollars per platform right? So 600 dollars if I wanted to create an android / ios app?

More or less

you get a 10% discount on the total price if you buy multiple licences at the same time

You can see all here: https://store.xamarin.com/#purchase

The app size limit is so restrictive their own demos won't even compile. It's a tremendous shame because they automatically exclude so many people.

The cheapest PhoneGap offering with support will cost you at least $249/year. And for that much you get No Guarantee support, which sounds quite odd.

As i see in the link above the support for xamarin is only in the business package so it starts at $999/year (please correct me if i am wrong).

Anyway i was not talking about the support option, but about the chance of deploy a full serious multios app. With phonegap you have that for free, with xamarin you have to pay (299*2) minus discount of 10%. Just this.

wrong appcelerator doesnt use CSS/HTML , just javascript. The UI is native with appcelerator.

I'm using it, and I love it. I actually am getting some very good performance on Android since the language is actually good (related: http://jeffrey.io/damn-garbage-collection)

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