I first heard about Xamarin in 2014 after I returned from the WW MSP Summit in Seattle. At that time, I was a core Windows Platforms programmer – Windows Desktop with WPF and Windows Phone. As the curious guy that I was, I downloaded it and ran the trial then – it was a $99 subscription. I created my first app and I got my free Xamarin t-shirt. Getting that alone made me love the platform more. But as a final year student, I could not afford to pay for it, so I had to let it be for a while.
It was a great relief when – I think at Build 2015 or around that time – Microsoft announced that Xamarin was becoming free for MSDN subscribers then later free for all Visual Studio editions from 2015 Update 3. Then of course, I decided I was going to take it for more runs. It was my last semester in the university so I couldn’t focus much on programming.
From when it was announced that Xamarin was becoming part of the Visual Studio family for free, I have been on the journey till now. So, let me tell you a few things about Xamarin and what makes it good for me.
I get to use my C# knowledge
Because I have been writing C# for quite some time and I get to use it on a platform that holds promise. For my user interface design, I have been using XAML to design Windows and Windows Phone apps, so it took just few tweaks and I got on my feet.
It’s cool
I know there are tons of cross-platform mobile development tools and frameworks out there, I just personally feel Xamarin is way cooler than all of them.
It’s beyond just mobile
Beyond just using Xamarin to build apps for Android, iOS and Windows – with the right tools installed, you can build for Watch, TV, MacOS – and even the possibility of more.
To use Xamarin to code, you need a knowledge of the following
| Xamarin.Forms | C#, XAML |
| Xamarin.Android | XML, C#, AXML (Android Designer) |
| Xamarin.iOS | C#, iOS Designer (.storyboard) |
Learn how to get started with Xamarin on Microsoft Learn and some of the following link
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/create-a-mobile-app-with-xamarin-forms/
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/learn/mobile
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/
When I started learning Xamarin, a Youtube video series by Houssem Dellai was helpful – Click here.