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hhandoko

What's specifically your objection?

I am happy to pay for the license for a guarantee of continuing (and timely) updates.

Plus, looking at their target market, I don't think free, open source model would be as effective.

Disclaimer: I am a Xamarin customer.

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I think that the language (and its "batteries", i.e. std libs) should be separated from the product, because products die. Xamarin model - while it can be fine for a short stint, I don't think it is good for a long-term relationship.

For me, Xamarin developer is kind of associated with Clarion developer, PowerBuilder developer.

You make a fair point and I normally share your view about compilers and tools. I think the Xamarin situation is complex, though, because most of the product is already open source. The C# compiler and x86 runtime, the standard libs (System.*), and the IDE (monodevelop aka Xamarin Studio) are all open source; and the platform bindings are a thin, almost 1:1 layer covering the iOS and android APIs. What you're really paying for is the AOT mechanism, packaging, and ARM runtime -- it's about all that's left they can sell. It's also worth noting that a ton of their code goes back into mono and associated projects.

I still think you have a good point, and I agree, but as for myself, I decided to make an exception in this case. I don't think it's quite as bad as PowerBuilder or Clarion at least.

to be fair monodevelop and xamarin studio are not equal. The first is low supported and full of bug but free ( i think that is voluntary), the second is not free (at least not if you want to do something decent) and is the main focus of xamarin. I would say they try to "trap" you in mono with monodevelop to then oblige you to buy something more decent as xamarin studio.

Wrong.

Xamarin Studio and MonoDevelop are the exact same code base.

The only difference is that Xamarin Studio contains the iOS and Android plugins, plus adds a Xamarin Branding (branding is completely pluggable in MonoDevelop)

Oh, my bad in this case. So why there is not a linux version of xamarin studio? Or it is just because there is not a linux version of the plugins?

Mostly because they would have to provide their own Mono runtime as there's too many variations in the vast number of Linux Distros out there. That combined with demand is much lower than that of Windows and OSX for Mono.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15900963/is-it-possible-t...

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