native apps made easy with xamarin and cross-platform c#
TRANSCRIPT
Native apps made easy with Xamarin and cross-platform C#
Jivko PetiovChief Architect, Abilitics
@jivkopetiovlinkedin.com/in/jivkopetiov [email protected]
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
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Chief ArchitectAbilitics
@jivkopetiovlinkedin.com/in/jivkopetiov