For how long (untill a drastic change / new hardware comes / whatever) ?
Edit: this is TTM (Time To Market)
I realize this is an old thread, but…
I’m in the middle of a Xamarin project (pre-existing code base) targeting iOS and Android. Xamarin on Visual Studio 2017 is without a doubt the worst development experience I have ever had. I am hating life right now. I would honestly rather be working on a project under the constraints of a first generation Power Mac + CodeWarrior because that was a FAR more productive combo with a more reliable IDE than a core i7 + Win VS2017 + Xamarin.
Visual Studio 2017 is bloated and slow to start. With Xamarin on top it is a nightmare. You are often waiting minutes for something to happen while your CPU is pegged at 100%. The edit/build/debug cycle wastes hours in a week simply because the build step takes so long.
While VS2017 seems stable with traditional Windows forms projects, it is terribly unstable with a Xamarin project. I have to restart it multiple times a day. I also have to clean the project and do a full rebuild multiple times a day. It’s really fun when the first rebuild doesn’t help and you have to quit VS, manually clean the obj and bin folders, and then re-open the solution and rebuild. 10-15 minutes wasted for nothing. At least I can warm my hands over the computer since the CPU is pegged the entire time.
Did I mention that XAML GUI editors are worthless? Yep. The whole industry is complaining about developer productivity and crying that there aren’t enough developer hours to complete projects. So Microsoft decided to throw everyone back to about the mid-1980s when it comes to GUI development. You get to hand code your GUI and run it between changes to accurately see how it will look. This slows you down two ways since the build times with Xamarin are awful.
And don’t even get me started on MVVM…
Now that I’m done ranting: I realize Xojo’s priorities have to shift per Geoff’s post. But I am hoping their Android support comes soon and is usable fast. If it does I’ll have the opportunity to pitch Xojo instead of Xamarin for new development. As long as Xojo is stable and working with a core native control set, it will blow right past Xamarin. This Xamarin project is like walking knee deep through mud.
When Xojo Android is stable enough, I will be happy to do a comparison. Xojo will blow Xamarin out of the water on productivity and development time. It won’t even be a question.
Thanks for the comparison Daniel. It fights off the ‘grass is always greener’ arguments that come up every now and then.
That’s certainly what we are aiming to do.
Oh, now I know.
I know there are companies here building apps in just days and they contemporary deliver same functionality for ios and android .
They probably use rich templates and have the same under the hood for 90% of each project they do, but what counts is the customer experience and the time to market. And from one I know, they are definitely not using Xamarin.
How could they? Between the VS installer and NuGet package issues, we literally spent days getting a pre-existing project to compile on a new machine without error.
The things people have put up with over the years simply because the label “Microsoft” was on the box…
Xamarin is useful in very very specific use cases that most people do not have.
Java is not hard - especially if you know C# and are curious about Xamarin and Kotlin is even easier.
The theoretical value add of Xojo is being able to use the same business logic on all platforms. Android must support at minimum all the same classes in the new framework as iOS does or it will be a total cluster to navigate and document.
These are the types of apps that APPLE is about to ban from the App store.
Source? Link?
Apple Developer Guidelines 4.2.6
“If your App doesn’t provide some sort of lasting entertainment value, or is just plain creepy, it may not be accepted” – haha… well there goes my chances 
just had to do an app on android, first ever, used B4A, absolutely superb, if Xojo android comes close to that then it would be very pleasing.
The language
But what about the available IDEs ?
[quote=365667:@Emile Schwarz]The language
But what about the available IDEs ?[/quote]
That’s always been the stumbling block for me too…