Microsoft Makes Xamarin Free In Latest Attempt At Mobile Dominance

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megiv

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I used Xamarin with C# and it's so much fun. C# is such a wonderful language, and being able to code in C# for mobile apps is just awesome.
 

My experience between languages, whether it's VB, C++, or SQL, is that you don't so much as relearn how to program as simply learn the how to bring your existing programming knowledge to bear in a new syntax. Whether you say "Dim X as Integer" or "int x;" the concept of an integer variable is the same. If you understand programming, you already understand the steps you need to do to accomplish a task. Learning a new language just means you know another way of telling a computer to perform the exact same actions.
 

alextheblue

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Whether you say "Dim X as Integer" or "int x;" the concept of an integer variable is the same. If you understand programming, you already understand the steps you need to do to accomplish a task.
I dunno man there are near-exceptions. I remember in HS they started us off on Pascal using Borland libraries (and a badly outdated IDE) and then switched us to C++ and standard template... it wasn't quite like starting over but it wasn't just learning new ways to initialize variables either. :D

But I get what you're saying if you can program in one language you can generally pick up another one easily enough, it's mostly learning the syntax and common libraries. I eventually discovered that I really don't care for programming though, took some in college and I got good grades but it just wasn't for me. Especially testing and debugging which seemed to me like most of the workload.
 
VB.NET to C# is not so drastic a switch. It mostly is just syntax as both languages target the same CLR (Common Language Runtime). Programming in C# may feel a bit odd at first, but once you work through the transition, it'll feel just like home, and maybe even make a bit more sense than VB.NET.
 
Xamarin Starter Edition was available for free as a separate add-on to VS 2012 & 13, and installed alongside of 2015. This may be what you are thinking of. The Starter Edition was a tad hamstrung for serious development work. Thanks to Microsoft's acquisition of the company going through, non-Starter Edition Xamarin is now included with all of the VS 2015 releases.

Xamarin FAQ
 

Bollinger02

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Does anyone know how easy it is to adapt a good understanding of VB.net to C#? I've wanted to make use of Xamarin, but if I have to totally relearn things, it's not much of a point vs. learning Android code.
Try JetBrains DotPeek's.... and go for Decompiled Sources. It will give you a fair C# translation of you VB app
 
Windows Phone 8.1 was really a nice OS and I prefer it over Android. but I'm stuck with Android because MS doesn't have a compelling phone with WP10 on it. I haven't had a chance to try WP10 because of this. I'm planning to upgrade my phone soon, but I don't care for a low end, low resolution phone and MS (as far as I can tell) have no high end phones.
 

kenyee

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I never thought VB.Net was like C#.
C# is like a fixed up Java w/o waiting for committees to evolve it...it's quite good as a language and environment.
Xamarin does add a bit of code bloat though...e.g., if you add LINQ to your app, you suck in a 6MB DLL. What should have been a 10MB app becomes a 30MB app fairly quickly :-(
But you can share 40-50% of your code even if you don't do xamarin.forms...
 

scolaner

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Didn't realize so many of you were devs. :) If anyone is a mobile dev and is planning to work with Xamarin to build cross-platform apps, I'd be curious to chat. Shoot me a DM.
 
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