native apps made easy with xamarin and cross-platform c#

Native apps made easy with Xamarin and cross-platform C#

Jivko PetiovChief Architect, Abilitics

@jivkopetiovlinkedin.com/in/jivkopetiov jivko@abilitics.com

There are only two hard problems in computer science:

finishing things

and getting paid

Agenda

• 1. My Story with Xamarin

• 2. Hello World

• 3. What is Xamarin

• 4. Real world app example

• 5. Lessons learned (the hard way)

• 6. Questions

1. My Story with Xamarin

• 2009 – working with other mobile devs

• 2010 – Purchased license and started developing

• 2011 – 2 apps released in App Store, customers paid money

• 2012 - Private App Store implementation

• 2013 – Consumer product launched

• 2014-2015 – working with other Xamarin devs

2. Hello World

3. What is Xamarin

• Founded in 2011 (technology exists since 2009)

• iOS, Android and Windows apps with C#

• Native UI, native API access, native performance

• Same C# code across platforms

• No need to learn the native APIs in depth

• App Store apps built with Xamarin

Xamarin Today

• Venture capital

• 300++ employees

• 900 000++ registered developers

• Partnership with Microsoft (acquisition rumours)

• Component vendors - Telerik, Infragistics, ComponentOne, DevExpress, Syncfusion, Steema

• Mature platform

How does it work

Traditional Native apps

Xamarin approach

4. Real world app example

5. Lessons learned (the hard way)

• Private App Stores (Sideloading)

• Hybrid vs Native

• State of hybrid platforms – shiny but young and immature

• Native is expensive and boring but stable

• Don’t use jQuery Mobile

App Quality

• Users expect software to just work

• Defensive programming

• Use a bug reporting tool - Xamarin Insights, Splunk MINT, etc

• printf() debugging - better than real debugger

"One bad programmer can easily create two new jobs a year"

Developer: I just deployed some awesome new changes

User: I look forward to your awesome new bugs

Don’t reinvent the wheel

• Push notifications - own implementation vs third-party vs cloud

• Components by Telerik, Infragistics, ComponentOne, DevExpress, Syncfusion, Steema

• Nuget packages, open source libraries

• Keep it simple, don’t use every new framework out there

• New iOS and Android versions - great and exciting, until you get a phone call

Embrace C# async

But this wasn’t pretty back in 2013

Mobile is hard

• Vesper – todo app

• Dropbox-like functionality

• Background sync

Mobile is hard and complex …But we can make it easy and simple …with Xamarin

Resources

• Pluralsight courses - http://www.pluralsight.com/search/?searchTerm=xamarin

• Bookshttp://www.amazon.com/Creating-Xamarin-Forms-Preview-Developer-Reference-ebook/dp/B00NXYJ8DK

http://www.amazon.com/Xamarin-Cross-platform-Application-Development-Second-ebook/dp/B00U64KQO0/

Jivko Petiov

Please give your feedback about this session and vote for your favorite MobDemo competitor on the MobCon app!

Chief ArchitectAbilitics

@jivkopetiovlinkedin.com/in/jivkopetiov

jivko@abilitics.com