Re: Opinions sought on Xamarin
Sorry to spam, I get excited and passionate sometimes! :)
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote:
Nice blog post... but if they had just used Xamarin their job would have
been alot easier.
They wouldn't of had to write their own persistance layer, with Xamarin
you can use the Native SQLite instances. Their serious backend code eg
Offline, Caching, would have been able to use C# and the full .net
framework.
Actually the project I'm working on at the moment is more complicated than
the dropbox app, more feature with offline support etc and I've been
able to implement as a single developer...
For serious applications Xamarin is hands down the best!
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:29 PM, William Luu will@gmail.com wrote:
On a related note, Dropbox used C++ for their Android/iOS apps -
http://oleb.net/blog/2014/05/how-dropbox-uses-cplusplus-cross-platform-development/
On 24 October 2014 15:22, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote:
http://ionicframework.com/
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com
wrote:
... but that said, Xamarin is pretty heavy weight, it's s big learning
curve.. if you want something lightweight and 'pretty' good you should try
out Ionic...
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:19 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com
wrote:
Go Xamarin it's the best! (Opinion may be bias www.michaelridland.com)
Traditional Xamarin (Native API) as the platform is awesome and solid
and fast, the IDE and some of the tools around it can be a bit buggy.
Xamarin.Forms is pretty early, and can be frustrating but I have build
some
XPlat app pretty rapidly with it.
Actually I'm doing a 'Introduction to Xamarin' at SydMobile in a few
weeks, you should come along I'd love to answer any questions you have.
http://www.meetup.com/SydMobile/
Below is a unpublished blog post on why you should use Xamarin...
*Should I use Xamarin for Mobile Development? YES you should!*
In my opinion you'd be insane if you didn't use Xamarin for mobile
development. Many people don't know what they're missing out on by not
using Xamarin so I'm going to highlight some reasons I think people
should be using Xamarin.
1) It's Native but with 80%+ code share?
So for those that aren't aware of Xamarin or how it works, Xamarin allows
you to develop apps for iOS, Android and Mac from a single code base. When
I say this I don't mean in a webview or customised API, it actually
usesthe Native APIs. So when developing you use UITableView which is
the same API that a native developer would be using.
2) C# and F# are Modern languages
C# might not be the hipster language of the year it is a continually
evolving language with solid features like type interference, dynamic
types, language integrated query (LINQ), async/await and first class
functions. C# is designed for developing large robust applications.
And for the functional types there's F#, which from what I've been
told it's like scala but faster and better thought out.
I'd argue they're better languages than java, javascript and
objective-c... and seeing that they're currently the only languages with
built in async you could say their even better than swift...
3) async/await
.. 'wait but javascript is all async' i hear you say... C#/F#
async/await is different to what people normally think async is. C#/F#
async/await tackles the callback hell problems in rich clients, anyone who
works with rich clients will know of these problems. This is a problem
that's attempted to be solved with promises and generators but neither are
at the level of async/await.
Here's a little before/after sample:
*Before:*
doAsync1(function () {
doAsync2(function () {
doAsync3(function () {
doAsync4(function () {
})
})
})
})
*After:*
await doAsync1()
await doAsync2()
await doAsync3()
await doAsync4()
4) Watches, Google Glass wearables and the future of devices.
In case you haven't noticed the future isn't just mobiles it's
wearables, devices and IOT. Xamarin has same day support for all
these platforms including android wear, google glass, Amazon TV and more.
As I've said beforeXamarin uses the Native APIs and compiles down to
native so using Xamarin you're in the perfect position develop all
modern platforms.
5) It's ready now!
All the time I hear people say 'html is a fast moving target' or 'it
will get there eventually'. Xamarin is here now, it's Native and it's
cross platform. Why wait to have a great app when you can have it now and
as a bonus know that your application is future proof for future devices.
6) It's fast and stable
From personal experience the Xamarin traditional (Xamarin.iOS and
Xamarin.Android) platform is solid, fast and stable. You'd be hard
pressed to find a problem with the core parts of the platform, any app
bugs
will probably be your own bugs.
7) Documentation
The
Re: Code Mechanical Keyboards
I carry a microsoft natural keyboard around with me, typing on a standard straight keyboard hurts my wrists after an hour or two. Three hours and I can't move the fingers in my left hand. I would love a full mechanical keyboard if it was split. Davy
Re: Opinions sought on Xamarin
The evangelism aside - xamarin career wise for a .net dev is the smart
money but I have had many conference calls with apple. Microsoft and Google
on this subject and they tend to nudge you in the native direction and only
use these middle ground options with caution
Personally after spending the last 5 years analysing the mobility problem
my advice is to be open to the idea of doubling down on one device and
secure wins there first. Once you've built muscle than try the breadth play
but when you go breadth you increase in dev time or you sacrifice in depth
features. It's rarely ever win win approach and you always leave a little
of your creative soul on the table
Xamarin and / or unity3d though are really the only ones that so far stand
a legitimate chance at future success especially for c# devs
On Friday, 24 October 2014, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote:
Sorry to spam, I get excited and passionate sometimes! :)
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com
javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','rid...@gmail.com'); wrote:
Nice blog post... but if they had just used Xamarin their job would have
been alot easier.
They wouldn't of had to write their own persistance layer, with Xamarin
you can use the Native SQLite instances. Their serious backend code eg
Offline, Caching, would have been able to use C# and the full .net
framework.
Actually the project I'm working on at the moment is more complicated
than the dropbox app, more feature with offline support etc and I've
been able to implement as a single developer...
For serious applications Xamarin is hands down the best!
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:29 PM, William Luu will@gmail.com
javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','will@gmail.com'); wrote:
On a related note, Dropbox used C++ for their Android/iOS apps -
http://oleb.net/blog/2014/05/how-dropbox-uses-cplusplus-cross-platform-development/
On 24 October 2014 15:22, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com
javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','rid...@gmail.com'); wrote:
http://ionicframework.com/
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com
javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','rid...@gmail.com'); wrote:
... but that said, Xamarin is pretty heavy weight, it's s big learning
curve.. if you want something lightweight and 'pretty' good you should try
out Ionic...
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:19 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com
javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','rid...@gmail.com'); wrote:
Go Xamarin it's the best! (Opinion may be bias www.michaelridland.com
)
Traditional Xamarin (Native API) as the platform is awesome and solid
and fast, the IDE and some of the tools around it can be a bit buggy.
Xamarin.Forms is pretty early, and can be frustrating but I have build
some
XPlat app pretty rapidly with it.
Actually I'm doing a 'Introduction to Xamarin' at SydMobile in a few
weeks, you should come along I'd love to answer any questions you have.
http://www.meetup.com/SydMobile/
Below is a unpublished blog post on why you should use Xamarin...
*Should I use Xamarin for Mobile Development? YES you should!*
In my opinion you'd be insane if you didn't use Xamarin for mobile
development. Many people don't know what they're missing out on by not
using Xamarin so I'm going to highlight some reasons I think people
should be using Xamarin.
1) It's Native but with 80%+ code share?
So for those that aren't aware of Xamarin or how it works, Xamarin allows
you to develop apps for iOS, Android and Mac from a single code base.
When
I say this I don't mean in a webview or customised API, it actually
usesthe Native APIs. So when developing you use UITableView which is
the same API that a native developer would be using.
2) C# and F# are Modern languages
C# might not be the hipster language of the year it is a continually
evolving language with solid features like type interference, dynamic
types, language integrated query (LINQ), async/await and first class
functions. C# is designed for developing large robust applications.
And for the functional types there's F#, which from what I've been
told it's like scala but faster and better thought out.
I'd argue they're better languages than java, javascript and
objective-c... and seeing that they're currently the only languages with
built in async you could say their even better than swift...
3) async/await
.. 'wait but javascript is all async' i hear you say... C#/F#
async/await is different to what people normally think async is. C#/F#
async/await tackles the callback hell problems in rich clients, anyone
who
works with rich clients will know of these problems. This is a problem
that's attempted to be solved with promises and generators but neither
are
at the level of async/await.
Here's a little before/after sample:
*Before:*
doAsync1(function () {
doAsync2(function () {
doAsync3(function () {
doAsync4(function () {
})
Re: Opinions sought on Xamarin
@rid00z is right on the money. Xamarin makes perfect sense in the enterprise market and allows the existing base of .NET developers to become mobile developers as long as they are not completely clueless (ie: SOLID fundamentals/DI/IoC/Interfaces) Business sense due to code sharing and being able to ensure feature release unity between multiple platforms with minimal effort and also allows business to hedge/protect their investment against how fast the consumer world is moving and eliminate platform lock-in. Developer wise, yes there is a learning cliff and properly architecting software/solution is of the upmost importance. My advice is either study code on GitHub, attend a meet up or signup for Xamarin university. Definitely start with a single platform as there is iOS/Android/WindowsPhone domain knowledge that must be learnt. This caused some issues for early adopters and or some issues for junior developers who may not be comfortable reading examples in Java or ObjectiveC and translating them back into .NET. This is over the last year has dramatically became better due to high quality blog posts, stackoverflow, GitHub and xamarin evolve videos/xamarin university. Get someone who's been in the trenches to show you how to layout a solution or study open source code. a) Portable Class Libraries (Profile78) Provides constraints that force proper architecture up front to push platform specific implementations away from the core (ie: Logic to dial a ph# is different on each platform) This is done by barebones interface in the core project and a per platform implementation of that interface. Ie. ITelephonyService - MakePhoneCall(string number) - SendSMS(string number, string message) Use profile78 or profile158 (I use 78) This is my default route on a long term engagement, especially if there are juniors involved. Prevents some bad code smells from getting in the door. b) File Linking Great for a quick throwaway application/hackathon as it allows you to not worry about architecture and get shit done. Downsides include drowning in LOTS of #ifdef /fast/ unless you separate code via partial classes in core project with platform implementation via extending the partial classes. c) Shared Project Has downsides that it really interferes with XAML namespace resolution in Expression Blend / Visual Studio on Windows Phone. Single namespace Regards, Geoff 0404654654 Sent from my iPhone On 24 Oct 2014, at 5:07 pm, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: Sorry to spam, I get excited and passionate sometimes! :) On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: Nice blog post... but if they had just used Xamarin their job would have been alot easier. They wouldn't of had to write their own persistance layer, with Xamarin you can use the Native SQLite instances. Their serious backend code eg Offline, Caching, would have been able to use C# and the full .net framework. Actually the project I'm working on at the moment is more complicated than the dropbox app, more feature with offline support etc and I've been able to implement as a single developer... For serious applications Xamarin is hands down the best! On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:29 PM, William Luu will@gmail.com wrote: On a related note, Dropbox used C++ for their Android/iOS apps - http://oleb.net/blog/2014/05/how-dropbox-uses-cplusplus-cross-platform-development/ On 24 October 2014 15:22, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: http://ionicframework.com/ On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: ... but that said, Xamarin is pretty heavy weight, it's s big learning curve.. if you want something lightweight and 'pretty' good you should try out Ionic... On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:19 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: Go Xamarin it's the best! (Opinion may be bias www.michaelridland.com) Traditional Xamarin (Native API) as the platform is awesome and solid and fast, the IDE and some of the tools around it can be a bit buggy. Xamarin.Forms is pretty early, and can be frustrating but I have build some XPlat app pretty rapidly with it. Actually I'm doing a 'Introduction to Xamarin' at SydMobile in a few weeks, you should come along I'd love to answer any questions you have. http://www.meetup.com/SydMobile/ Below is a unpublished blog post on why you should use Xamarin... Should I use Xamarin for Mobile Development? YES you should! In my opinion you'd be insane if you didn't use Xamarin for mobile development. Many people don't know what they're missing out on by not using Xamarin so I'm going to highlight some reasons I think people should be using Xamarin. 1) It's Native but with 80%+ code share? So for those that aren't aware of Xamarin or how it works, Xamarin allows you to develop apps for iOS, Android and Mac
Re: Opinions sought on Xamarin
There's a free preview of a Xamarin Forms book being written by Charles Petzold
if anyone is interested -
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2014/10/06/free-ebook-creating-mobile-apps-with-xamarin-forms-preview-edition.aspx
—
Sent from Mailbox
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote:
Nice blog post... but if they had just used Xamarin their job would have
been alot easier.
They wouldn't of had to write their own persistance layer, with Xamarin you
can use the Native SQLite instances. Their serious backend code eg Offline,
Caching, would have been able to use C# and the full .net framework.
Actually the project I'm working on at the moment is more complicated than
the dropbox app, more feature with offline support etc and I've been
able to implement as a single developer...
For serious applications Xamarin is hands down the best!
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:29 PM, William Luu will@gmail.com wrote:
On a related note, Dropbox used C++ for their Android/iOS apps -
http://oleb.net/blog/2014/05/how-dropbox-uses-cplusplus-cross-platform-development/
On 24 October 2014 15:22, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote:
http://ionicframework.com/
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com
wrote:
... but that said, Xamarin is pretty heavy weight, it's s big learning
curve.. if you want something lightweight and 'pretty' good you should try
out Ionic...
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:19 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com
wrote:
Go Xamarin it's the best! (Opinion may be bias www.michaelridland.com)
Traditional Xamarin (Native API) as the platform is awesome and solid
and fast, the IDE and some of the tools around it can be a bit buggy.
Xamarin.Forms is pretty early, and can be frustrating but I have build
some
XPlat app pretty rapidly with it.
Actually I'm doing a 'Introduction to Xamarin' at SydMobile in a few
weeks, you should come along I'd love to answer any questions you have.
http://www.meetup.com/SydMobile/
Below is a unpublished blog post on why you should use Xamarin...
*Should I use Xamarin for Mobile Development? YES you should!*
In my opinion you'd be insane if you didn't use Xamarin for mobile
development. Many people don't know what they're missing out on by not
using Xamarin so I'm going to highlight some reasons I think people
should be using Xamarin.
1) It's Native but with 80%+ code share?
So for those that aren't aware of Xamarin or how it works, Xamarin allows
you to develop apps for iOS, Android and Mac from a single code base. When
I say this I don't mean in a webview or customised API, it actually
usesthe Native APIs. So when developing you use UITableView which is
the same API that a native developer would be using.
2) C# and F# are Modern languages
C# might not be the hipster language of the year it is a continually
evolving language with solid features like type interference, dynamic
types, language integrated query (LINQ), async/await and first class
functions. C# is designed for developing large robust applications.
And for the functional types there's F#, which from what I've been told
it's like scala but faster and better thought out.
I'd argue they're better languages than java, javascript and
objective-c... and seeing that they're currently the only languages with
built in async you could say their even better than swift...
3) async/await
.. 'wait but javascript is all async' i hear you say... C#/F#
async/await is different to what people normally think async is. C#/F#
async/await tackles the callback hell problems in rich clients, anyone who
works with rich clients will know of these problems. This is a problem
that's attempted to be solved with promises and generators but neither are
at the level of async/await.
Here's a little before/after sample:
*Before:*
doAsync1(function () {
doAsync2(function () {
doAsync3(function () {
doAsync4(function () {
})
})
})
})
*After:*
await doAsync1()
await doAsync2()
await doAsync3()
await doAsync4()
4) Watches, Google Glass wearables and the future of devices.
In case you haven't noticed the future isn't just mobiles it's
wearables, devices and IOT. Xamarin has same day support for all these
platforms including android wear, google glass, Amazon TV and more. As
I've
said beforeXamarin uses the Native APIs and compiles down to native
so using Xamarin you're in the perfect position develop all modern
platforms.
5) It's ready now!
All the time I hear people say 'html is a fast moving target' or 'it
will get there eventually'. Xamarin is here now, it's Native and it's
cross platform. Why wait to have a great app when you can have it now and
as a bonus know that your application is future proof for future devices.
6) It's fast and stable
From personal experience the Xamarin traditional (Xamarin.iOS and
Xamarin.Android)
Re: Opinions sought on Xamarin
Xamarin certainly is the hottest thing on the plate recently, popping up in news and discussions everywhere. I feel compelled to become familiar with it just to keep myself viable. Last April I downloaded and fired-up the full Android SDK but despite several hours of suffering I couldn't even get the Hello World app to run (due to emulator problems). I haven't gathered the courage to return to that suffering and overcome it, so I might as well discard it and learn something more generally useful, like Xamarin ... and best of all it's C# instead of Java. I would like to create a simple demo app for phones or iPad that gets XML from a web service and shows it as a table or chart, which could generate some interest in real development. However I notice on the Pricing Page https://store.xamarin.com/ that $1000/year for the Business level, which is pretty steep for a one man business who just wants to try it out. The FAQ says software built in trial mode is crippled or splashed. I also see that you variously need iOS, Google and Android SDKs installed, which is a huge footprint. You need an OS X 10.8 machine to build for iOS. Fair enough, but phew! Xamarin is expensive and has cruel trial system. *Greg K* On 25 October 2014 01:22, William Luu will@gmail.com wrote: There's a free preview of a Xamarin Forms book being written by Charles Petzold if anyone is interested - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2014/10/06/free-ebook-creating-mobile-apps-with-xamarin-forms-preview-edition.aspx — Sent from Mailbox https://www.dropbox.com/mailbox On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: Nice blog post... but if they had just used Xamarin their job would have been alot easier. They wouldn't of had to write their own persistance layer, with Xamarin you can use the Native SQLite instances. Their serious backend code eg Offline, Caching, would have been able to use C# and the full .net framework. Actually the project I'm working on at the moment is more complicated than the dropbox app, more feature with offline support etc and I've been able to implement as a single developer... For serious applications Xamarin is hands down the best! On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:29 PM, William Luu will@gmail.com wrote: On a related note, Dropbox used C++ for their Android/iOS apps - http://oleb.net/blog/2014/05/how-dropbox-uses-cplusplus-cross-platform-development/ On 24 October 2014 15:22, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: http://ionicframework.com/ On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: ... but that said, Xamarin is pretty heavy weight, it's s big learning curve.. if you want something lightweight and 'pretty' good you should try out Ionic... On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:19 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: Go Xamarin it's the best! (Opinion may be bias www.michaelridland.com ) Traditional Xamarin (Native API) as the platform is awesome and solid and fast, the IDE and some of the tools around it can be a bit buggy. Xamarin.Forms is pretty early, and can be frustrating but I have build some XPlat app pretty rapidly with it. Actually I'm doing a 'Introduction to Xamarin' at SydMobile in a few weeks, you should come along I'd love to answer any questions you have. http://www.meetup.com/SydMobile/ Below is a unpublished blog post on why you should use Xamarin... *Should I use Xamarin for Mobile Development? YES you should!* In my opinion you'd be insane if you didn't use Xamarin for mobile development. Many people don't know what they're missing out on by not using Xamarin so I'm going to highlight some reasons I think people should be using Xamarin. 1) It's Native but with 80%+ code share? So for those that aren't aware of Xamarin or how it works, Xamarin allows you to develop apps for iOS, Android and Mac from a single code base. When I say this I don't mean in a webview or customised API, it actually usesthe Native APIs. So when developing you use UITableView which is the same API that a native developer would be using. 2) C# and F# are Modern languages C# might not be the hipster language of the year it is a continually evolving language with solid features like type interference, dynamic types, language integrated query (LINQ), async/await and first class functions. C# is designed for developing large robust applications. And for the functional types there's F#, which from what I've been told it's like scala but faster and better thought out. I'd argue they're better languages than java, javascript and objective-c... and seeing that they're currently the only languages with built in async you could say their even better than swift... 3) async/await .. 'wait but javascript is all async' i hear you say... C#/F# async/await is different to what people normally think async is. C#/F# async/await tackles the callback hell
Re: Opinions sought on Xamarin
Man that Droid emulator sucks, try Geny motion it's a better emulator. Yes you pay for Xamarin, but think about the other side of that. The more money they make the more money they have to build better tools, and you don't want your product vendor in financial difficulties. The trial is great as it's actually fully featured for 30 days. The starter edition is the one that's useless. On Saturday, October 25, 2014, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: Xamarin certainly is the hottest thing on the plate recently, popping up in news and discussions everywhere. I feel compelled to become familiar with it just to keep myself viable. Last April I downloaded and fired-up the full Android SDK but despite several hours of suffering I couldn't even get the Hello World app to run (due to emulator problems). I haven't gathered the courage to return to that suffering and overcome it, so I might as well discard it and learn something more generally useful, like Xamarin ... and best of all it's C# instead of Java. I would like to create a simple demo app for phones or iPad that gets XML from a web service and shows it as a table or chart, which could generate some interest in real development. However I notice on the Pricing Page https://store.xamarin.com/ that $1000/year for the Business level, which is pretty steep for a one man business who just wants to try it out. The FAQ says software built in trial mode is crippled or splashed. I also see that you variously need iOS, Google and Android SDKs installed, which is a huge footprint. You need an OS X 10.8 machine to build for iOS. Fair enough, but phew! Xamarin is expensive and has cruel trial system. *Greg K* On 25 October 2014 01:22, William Luu will@gmail.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','will@gmail.com'); wrote: There's a free preview of a Xamarin Forms book being written by Charles Petzold if anyone is interested - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2014/10/06/free-ebook-creating-mobile-apps-with-xamarin-forms-preview-edition.aspx — Sent from Mailbox https://www.dropbox.com/mailbox On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','rid...@gmail.com'); wrote: Nice blog post... but if they had just used Xamarin their job would have been alot easier. They wouldn't of had to write their own persistance layer, with Xamarin you can use the Native SQLite instances. Their serious backend code eg Offline, Caching, would have been able to use C# and the full .net framework. Actually the project I'm working on at the moment is more complicated than the dropbox app, more feature with offline support etc and I've been able to implement as a single developer... For serious applications Xamarin is hands down the best! On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:29 PM, William Luu will@gmail.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','will@gmail.com'); wrote: On a related note, Dropbox used C++ for their Android/iOS apps - http://oleb.net/blog/2014/05/how-dropbox-uses-cplusplus-cross-platform-development/ On 24 October 2014 15:22, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','rid...@gmail.com'); wrote: http://ionicframework.com/ On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','rid...@gmail.com'); wrote: ... but that said, Xamarin is pretty heavy weight, it's s big learning curve.. if you want something lightweight and 'pretty' good you should try out Ionic... On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:19 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','rid...@gmail.com'); wrote: Go Xamarin it's the best! (Opinion may be bias www.michaelridland.com) Traditional Xamarin (Native API) as the platform is awesome and solid and fast, the IDE and some of the tools around it can be a bit buggy. Xamarin.Forms is pretty early, and can be frustrating but I have build some XPlat app pretty rapidly with it. Actually I'm doing a 'Introduction to Xamarin' at SydMobile in a few weeks, you should come along I'd love to answer any questions you have. http://www.meetup.com/SydMobile/ Below is a unpublished blog post on why you should use Xamarin... *Should I use Xamarin for Mobile Development? YES you should!* In my opinion you'd be insane if you didn't use Xamarin for mobile development. Many people don't know what they're missing out on by not using Xamarin so I'm going to highlight some reasons I think people should be using Xamarin. 1) It's Native but with 80%+ code share? So for those that aren't aware of Xamarin or how it works, Xamarin allows you to develop apps for iOS, Android and Mac from a single code base. When I say this I don't mean in a webview or customised API, it actually usesthe Native APIs. So when developing you use UITableView which is the same API that a native developer would be using. 2) C# and F# are Modern languages C# might not be the
Re: Opinions sought on Xamarin
In regards to a sample app, Xamarin has a huge amount on their github and docs website. The Store app is a good sample, https://github.com/xamarin/xamarin-store-app But I can't think of a production app that's opensource. Actually just found this http://motzcod.es/post/99906299427/announcing-bike-now-on-android-for-seattles, it's in production https://github.com/jamesmontemagno/BikeNow. On Sat, Oct 25, 2014 at 12:40 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: Man that Droid emulator sucks, try Geny motion it's a better emulator. Yes you pay for Xamarin, but think about the other side of that. The more money they make the more money they have to build better tools, and you don't want your product vendor in financial difficulties. The trial is great as it's actually fully featured for 30 days. The starter edition is the one that's useless. On Saturday, October 25, 2014, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: Xamarin certainly is the hottest thing on the plate recently, popping up in news and discussions everywhere. I feel compelled to become familiar with it just to keep myself viable. Last April I downloaded and fired-up the full Android SDK but despite several hours of suffering I couldn't even get the Hello World app to run (due to emulator problems). I haven't gathered the courage to return to that suffering and overcome it, so I might as well discard it and learn something more generally useful, like Xamarin ... and best of all it's C# instead of Java. I would like to create a simple demo app for phones or iPad that gets XML from a web service and shows it as a table or chart, which could generate some interest in real development. However I notice on the Pricing Page https://store.xamarin.com/ that $1000/year for the Business level, which is pretty steep for a one man business who just wants to try it out. The FAQ says software built in trial mode is crippled or splashed. I also see that you variously need iOS, Google and Android SDKs installed, which is a huge footprint. You need an OS X 10.8 machine to build for iOS. Fair enough, but phew! Xamarin is expensive and has cruel trial system. *Greg K* On 25 October 2014 01:22, William Luu will@gmail.com wrote: There's a free preview of a Xamarin Forms book being written by Charles Petzold if anyone is interested - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2014/10/06/free-ebook-creating-mobile-apps-with-xamarin-forms-preview-edition.aspx — Sent from Mailbox https://www.dropbox.com/mailbox On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: Nice blog post... but if they had just used Xamarin their job would have been alot easier. They wouldn't of had to write their own persistance layer, with Xamarin you can use the Native SQLite instances. Their serious backend code eg Offline, Caching, would have been able to use C# and the full .net framework. Actually the project I'm working on at the moment is more complicated than the dropbox app, more feature with offline support etc and I've been able to implement as a single developer... For serious applications Xamarin is hands down the best! On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:29 PM, William Luu will@gmail.com wrote: On a related note, Dropbox used C++ for their Android/iOS apps - http://oleb.net/blog/2014/05/how-dropbox-uses-cplusplus-cross-platform-development/ On 24 October 2014 15:22, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: http://ionicframework.com/ On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: ... but that said, Xamarin is pretty heavy weight, it's s big learning curve.. if you want something lightweight and 'pretty' good you should try out Ionic... On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 3:19 PM, Michael Ridland rid...@gmail.com wrote: Go Xamarin it's the best! (Opinion may be bias www.michaelridland.com) Traditional Xamarin (Native API) as the platform is awesome and solid and fast, the IDE and some of the tools around it can be a bit buggy. Xamarin.Forms is pretty early, and can be frustrating but I have build some XPlat app pretty rapidly with it. Actually I'm doing a 'Introduction to Xamarin' at SydMobile in a few weeks, you should come along I'd love to answer any questions you have. http://www.meetup.com/SydMobile/ Below is a unpublished blog post on why you should use Xamarin... *Should I use Xamarin for Mobile Development? YES you should!* In my opinion you'd be insane if you didn't use Xamarin for mobile development. Many people don't know what they're missing out on by not using Xamarin so I'm going to highlight some reasons I think people should be using Xamarin. 1) It's Native but with 80%+ code share? So for those that aren't aware of Xamarin or how it works, Xamarin allows you to develop apps for iOS, Android and Mac from a single code base. When I say this I don't mean in a webview or customised API, it actually
RE: PDF and .doc generators for websites
Thanks all, some great options and ideas as always. Regards, Greg Dr Greg Low 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.comhttp://www.sqldownunder.com/ From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Paul Glavich Sent: Friday, 24 October 2014 3:19 PM To: 'ozDotNet' Subject: RE: PDF and .doc generators for websites We use ExpertPDF as it does HTML to PDF conversions. Actually we use 2 separate versions of it as one supports SVG really well but has issues with some HTML items whereas the other one does pretty much every thing HTML but not SVG :) It works ok, but it’s a little CPU intensive and sometimes if the app pool recycles, it seems to get ‘wonky’ (yes that’s a tech term) and start eating memory slowly without letting it go until it hits our private bytes limit and forces another recycle after which it works as normal. My guess is that because it uses an external DLL (I think it is related to IE) and COM then this is where things go astray. I’d say this is ok as a library as it does do HTML to PDF quite well (we have people create templates in HTML) but if I had my way to redo it properly (it has been inplace for a long time), I would use an external service and take it off the box. At the very least, create my own site/vm to do the creation and call into that. In addition, I’d use a full .Net solution that does not require any interop. This way your sites are not affected by what might be a potential CPU suck and you can properly throttle and control the concurrency of PDF generation via queues (which you can still do on box but CPU usage is still affected). In addition, you can change PDF generation engines much more easily. - Glav From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.commailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Greg Low () Sent: Wednesday, 22 October 2014 2:43 PM To: ozDotNet Subject: PDF and .doc generators for websites Hi Folks, Anyone got strong opinions on particular PDF and .doc generators for use with MVC ? Regards, Greg Dr Greg Low 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.comhttp://www.sqldownunder.com/
