| Hey Guys, Xamarin University Instructor here, Obviously I think it's worth it, I learned it well enough to teach others. We have a bunch of free Self Paced Learning modules and videos at Xam University, as well as obviously the paid stuff that pays my salary ;-) There is a ton of investment and effort from a small team, remember, we've only been with a "big company" a few months, so the improvements come at a blistering start-up pace. If you haven't seen it in a couple years, you should really check back. If you are going to develop "all platforms" or even just iOS and Android, it is _certainly_ worth a long look. Access to every API you get access to in their native languages and the ability to avoid that language "context switching" pain. Plus, some amount of shared code (varies wildly, 25% - 75% depending on how heavily your app is just about custom UI and animations ). Because we use the same APIs (except when we have better ones), you can leverage the same documentation and StackOverflow posts when you need to (yes with a little language translation), but you often don't need to because Xamarin has a _lot_ of great documentation as well. And, as has been mentioned, "Xamarin Forms" does not equal "Xamarin". Although it is a valid choice for developing in Xamarin, it is only one option. Here is a super shallow comparison: Xamarin Forms: Super fast for super simple UI's and interactions with common elements. It is highly opinionated on what it should do and look like on all platforms. Customization is do-able but starts to increase the complexity of the app quickly to the point where the below would have been a better choice. "Xamarin" aka "Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android": Use essentially the same development patterns as Native Android and iOS developers and use the same API's (plus .NET library, and many .NET 3rd party libraries). You get code sharing (as noted, amount varies considerably), ability to "think in one language (often including your server, which might also be c#), and access to some additional libraries (because we support both the Native libraries _and_ the .NET ecosystem). Hope this helps :) Oh, and a quick plug. Xamarin University is live classes taught by real, very experienced developers who can actually help you learn and understand, so we are, you know, worth asking questions of. Also, we'll be doing a free presentation all day on November 18th as part of Visual Studio Connect, so check us out there and see what you think of Xamarin _and_ Xamarin University! |