

Build Cross-Platform Apps in C# using Parse and Xamarin - depoll
http://blog.parse.com/2013/04/13/build-cross-platform-apps-in-c-using-parse-and-xamarin/

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Paul_D_Santana
Does anyone have experience using Xamarin, as opposed to standard Android
development in Eclipse?

I'm looking at the website and as a daily C# developer, this looks enticing.
But I'm wondering what the limitations are as it seems somewhat too-good-to-
be-true.

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lars
I have for a couple of projects. Overall, I loved it. It allowed us to share
code on iOS, Android and Windows Phone (though we wrote native UIs separately,
in C#). Plus C# is a great language, and Visual Studio is a great IDE.

It's not perfect though:

\- On Android, there's a limit to how many Java Native Interface objects you
can have (40000 I believe). This sets a hard limit to how many object you can
have that wrap Java objects, so for instance you can't have 40000 UI objects
at the same time. It's possible to run into this problem, but you can work
around it by working in Java for those parts.

\- On iOS there are ways in which the Mono GC can free objects that are
referenced by the native objects, but not by the C# code. For instance, you
could pass a lambda to be called when a button gets clicked. This lambda (or
something it references) gets freed, and when the button is clicked it tries
to call C# code that's gone. This causes some really nasty bugs, and should
IMO be considered a bug as it really breaks the expectations one has when
coding in a managed language.

~~~
BenSS
I've been bitten buy similar bugs in Mono, it's really frustrating. I do like
the availability of Linq though.

Also coming from native iOS, debugging seems really clunky to me. It's very
easy to reach a state where the IDE just goes "welp, I have no idea what's in
scope right now".

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klewelling
I have an Android app that lets developers discover Android libraries and run
their demos. I have been thinking about adding some Xamarin samples but am
unsure if it would be worth my time. I don't have a good feel for how many C#
developers there are who want to write mobile apps.

~~~
carlospaulino
Are you the guy behind DevAppsDirect ?

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klewelling
Yes I am

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carlospaulino
Amazing little app. Great job!

~~~
klewelling
Thanks! It all started with the thought, what would happen if native apps were
as easy to try as website? DevAppsDirect is my MVP and I am just getting
started.

