I think David is on the money Greg. Have a look at http://blog.xamarin.com/eight-reasons-c-sharp-is-the-best-language-for-mobile-development/ if you're interested in Xamarin's view of the cross platform space and C# / .NET's fit.
Brenden On 4 January 2013 14:11, David Connors <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 2:29 PM, Greg Keogh <[email protected]> wrote: > >> The former means that the apps will be crippled because HTML5 just >> can't reproduce the rich UI of GDI/WPF or Silverlight, >> > Depends on the rendering engine. Throw this in Chrome: > http://www.htmlfivewow.com/slide1, my jaw dropped at this: > http://www.htmlfivewow.com/slide52 > > That aside, check out Xamarin.com (god I love these guys - is there > nothing they cannot do?) > > >> I fear that the Silverlight version of our app is doomed to die at an >> early age because it can only be seen in the ever-shrinking world of the >> desktop web browser. Years of Silverlight development may be wasted. >> > Silverlight always was a lame duck that wanted to be Flash for no other > reason than Flash was everywhere. > > Not only is there coding confusion about using ObjectC, Java, C#, >> HTML/Javascript, etc, there are marketing problems about the functionality >> of the apps on different devices. The Windows desktop app is very >> sophisticated, but the versions for phones and tablets would have to be >> seriously dumbed-down to be touch friendly. Even the Metro version would be >> utterly incapable of expressing the full app functionality. We now have the >> nightmare of managing not only different codebases and developer teams, but >> mutiple versions of the app with various functionality. >> > One man's "dumbed down" is another's "optimised for specific scenarios". > There isn't anything inherently evil or bad in offering a subset of > functionality on the go *if it is the subset people actually need*. > > Anyway, you get the idea. There must be other people in here who are going >> through this multi-platform conundrum in the new phone and tablet world. >> What ever happened to the promise that software development would get >> easier as languages and platforms converged? Remember the promise that VMs >> like Java and .NET would make our lives easier? It looks like different >> huge companies have betrayed us and are forcing us to use their platforms >> for their own greedy profit. >> > Well, Java is shit slow and does a great job of providing uniformly > garbage experiences across platforms. MS has never been very good at > cross-platform. .NET's cross-platformness died when they started building > the framework out of thin wrappers around pre-existing WIn32/COM IP. > > On the plus side, there are companies of pure genius out there making > stuff like Xamarin, Phonegap etc. Reading between the lines - it sounds > like Xamarin is what you are after. > > >> That leaves the developers and the marketing people bewildered without a >> clear path, and it's happening around me now. >> > You would have to post some more detail on what the app does. Unless there > are specific and compelling reasons (i.e. needs GPU shaders, camera and > stuff) I would do the whole thing web based. > > -- > David Connors > [email protected] | M +61 417 189 363 > Download my v-card: https://www.codify.com/cards/davidconnors > Follow me on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/davidconnors > Connect with me on LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/in/davidjohnconnors >
