Archives
- Newer posts
- April 2024
- November 2023
- October 2023
- August 2023
- May 2023
- February 2023
- October 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- June 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- August 2016
- June 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- July 2015
- June 2015
- Older posts
My journey from Phonegap to Xamarin
I have been working on mobile development for the last five years or so. I am a C# developer but my journey of working on mobile development started when our Company was approached to develop a mobile application for Goa 1556. This is a non-profit organization that seeks to mobilise knowledge about Goa – its culture, diaspora, and burning issues.
It becomes a privilege if the client allows the developers to choose the preferred technology for the project. As it was in the case of this mobile development project. It was back in 2012 when xamarin was not around, and we happened to choose phonegap back then.
Phonegap is a free and open source framework that allows you to develop mobile applications using web technologies you’re already familiar with: HTML, CSS and javascript. With phonegap, you can target all platforms including iOS, android and windows.
The Xamarin era started at Online when we reached that point that I think any mobile developer know about. Is it worth developing native? Should we keep coding the same thing 2-3 times? Master one programming language and technology is difficult enough, think about three! Not to mention to try to keep updated with continuous upcoming frameworks, versions, libraries, and components, etc.
I have been working on Xamarin for the last 2 years (from the time Xamarin was a paid platform). It was acquired by Microsoft almost a year ago. MS Visual Studio now includes Xamarin at no extra cost, including Community Edition, which is free for individual developers. I think using Xamarin is the way to go (because after all I am a C# developer). There is no need to re-code something for 3 different platforms when you can just have a shared codebase. Tools like Cordova and Phonegap don’t really work. They result in a very crappy experience that doesn’t use the native OS functions, doesn’t look and feel native, feels slow and has many bugs.