The Rise of Xamarin: Mobile Development in C#

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The Rise of Xamarin: Mobile Development in C# Friday, August 24, 12

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David Ortinau @davidortinau http://davidortinau.com 16 yrs web, interactive, mobile. Flash, iPhone, Android, WP7 BA English, Maryville University Friday, August 24, 12

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Friday, August 24, 12

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I Don’t Hate Objective-C Friday, August 24, 12

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I Don’t Hate JavaScript Or HTML5 Or HTML6 Or HTML7 Or HTML8 Or HTML9 Friday, August 24, 12

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Let’s Talk About • Cross Platform Holy Grail • What is Mono? • Who is Xamarin? • Why C#? • The World According to Xamarin Friday, August 24, 12

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Write Once Run Anywhere Friday, August 24, 12

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Friday, August 24, 12

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Write Once Run Anywhere • Do you hate users?* • Most cross-platform solutions beneﬁt developers and customers, but rarely value users and user experience. * kidding, of course you don’t. Users are cuddly. Friday, August 24, 12

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Either/Or • Concessions are made to afford faster development and less code to target multiple platforms. • Typically you must learn a new, custom way of coding for the middle framework in order to use it and target multiple platforms. *learning new stuff is not bad. Embrace it. Then decide the best path. Friday, August 24, 12

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iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide “An aspiring iOS developer faces three basic hurdles: You must learn the Objective-C language...You must master the big ideas... You must master the frameworks.” Friday, August 24, 12

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Both/And • How can we achieve broad reach across platforms while: • reusing as much code as possible • not sacrificing user experience • not sacrificing performance • not sacrificing features Friday, August 24, 12

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What is Mono? Friday, August 24, 12

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Mono Overview • Run .Net code across multiple platforms • Project began in 2001 • Novell “held” project for years • Mono “died” when Novell was acquired April 2011 • Xamarin founded May 2011 Friday, August 24, 12

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Key Parts • open source implementation of Microsoft's .Net Framework based on the Ecma standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime • Mono's C# compiler is feature complete for C# 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 (Ecma) • The runtime implements the Ecma Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). The runtime provides a Just-in-Time (JIT) compiler, an Ahead- of-Time compiler (AOT), a library loader, the garbage collector, a threading system and interoperability functionality. Friday, August 24, 12

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Supported Platforms • Linux • Android • Mac OS X • iOS • BSD • Sun Solaris • Unix • Microsoft Windows • Nintendo Wii • Sony PlayStation 3 • XBox Friday, August 24, 12

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Who is Xamarin? Friday, August 24, 12

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Xamarin Rising • Miguel de Icaza & Nat Friedman • 20+ Members from the Mono team • Self funded • Selling • MonoTouch for iOS • Mono for Android • Support Contracts • Other projects include MonoGame Friday, August 24, 12

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XobotOS • Android Ported to C# • Sharpen - code conversion tool • http://blog.xamarin.com/2012/05/01/android- in-c-sharp/ • https://github.com/xamarin/XobotOS • https://github.com/xamarin/XobotOS/tree/ master/sharpen Friday, August 24, 12

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Miguel “A project that we started because we thought it would be fun to do has turned out to yield some serious beneﬁts for our products. It’s important for a startup to stay focused, but sometimes you have to try something crazy to make progress. And who knows, maybe Google will thank us some day.” Friday, August 24, 12

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Why C#? Friday, August 24, 12

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Mature Language Features • Generics • LINQ • Events • Lambda Expressions • Reﬂection • Garbage Collection • Thread Pooling • Asynchronous Programming Features Friday, August 24, 12

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Broad Reach • Desktop • Windows • OS X • Linux • Mobile • iPhone • Android • Windows Phone • Gaming • Unity3D • Wii • PS3 • XBox • Embedded • Web and Server Friday, August 24, 12

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N A T I V E Friday, August 24, 12

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Tools • Visual Studio • ReSharper • Blend Studio • MonoDevelop Friday, August 24, 12

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The World According to Xamarin Friday, August 24, 12

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UI# C## Run)me# Pla/orm# Silverlight# Business#Logic# .NET# WP7# iOS# Mono# Android# MonoTouch# Mono#for# Android# Friday, August 24, 12

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Requirements • MonoTouch • Mac OS X • MonoDevelop • Mono for Android • Mac OS X or Windows • MonoDevelop or Visual Studio 2010 • Windows Phone • Windows • Visual Studio 2010 Friday, August 24, 12

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Runtime • Mono provides a superset of the Silverlight .Net proﬁle • Still less than full .Net removing pieces either too bulky or unnecessary on mobile Friday, August 24, 12

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Compiling • Apple doesn’t allow runtime compilation so MonoTouch provides Ahead-of-Time compilation • Publish directly to TestFlight • Android allows it, so Mono for Android employs Just-in-Time compilation Friday, August 24, 12

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Bindings • Follow the conventions of the native platform • UIViewController • UITableViewController • Create custom Bindings for 3rd party libraries Friday, August 24, 12

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Memory Management • Obj-C is retain count* • MonoTouch abstracts this adding Garbage Collection • Most classes expose a Dispose() method *newer iOS provides Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) that makes this less of a burden Friday, August 24, 12

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Delegates • Obj-C makes heavy use of delegation • C# provides delegation methods • C# replaces most with events Friday, August 24, 12

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Code Sharing • View code is platform speciﬁc • Business logic can be shared across all platforms using • Shared Libraries • Linked Files • Other methods • Partial Classes • Conditional Compilation • Default platform symbols provided Friday, August 24, 12

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Persistence • Isolated Storage • Read/Write from ﬁle using XMLSerializer • Database • Sql Server Compact Edition - WP7 • sqlite - iOS and Android • For WP7 • C#-SQLite - APIs http://code.google.com/p/csharp-sqlite/ • sqlite-net - ORM https://github.com/praeclarum/sqlite-net Friday, August 24, 12

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Testing • NUnitLite http://www.nunitlite.com/ • Friday, August 24, 12

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Popular Libraries • TinyMessenger http://hg.grumpydev.com/tinyioc/wiki/TinyMessenger • TinyIoC http://hg.grumpydev.com/tinyioc/wiki/Home • RestSharp http://restsharp.org/ • MonoCross http://code.google.com/p/monocross/ • MvvmCross https://github.com/slodge/MvvmCross • MvvmLight http://www.galasoft.ch/mvvm/ • C#-SQLite http://code.google.com/p/csharp-sqlite/ • sqlite-net https://github.com/praeclarum/sqlite-net Friday, August 24, 12

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More Links • MWC 2012 App https://github.com/xamarin/mobile-samples/tree/master/MWC • NYC Code Camp 6 App https://github.com/gshackles/NycCodeCamp6 • Mobile Development in C# http://amzn.com/1449320236 Friday, August 24, 12

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Thanks! @davidortinau http://davidortinau.com dave@davidortinau.com Friday, August 24, 12