HTML5 capabilities
Folks, a few times over the last year I've raised the topic of writing browser based applications that can reach the most mobile devices with the least coding effort. Sadly we learned (from the replies) that there is no easy road. It looks like you have to go native in Object C or Java, or use HTML5 and accept reduced functionality. All of these options are a rather frightening for us because we only have C++ and C# skills in the group and we'll have to hire specialists or undergo intense training. A colleague using the latest Borland C++ kits says it has a product called Prism which claims to target different platforms with a common code base. I said that sounds like black magic, but my colleague is so busy that he hasn't had time yet to evaluate Prism. A quick search hints that Prism is actually Oxygene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_Prism, which would take us down a completely different road. So this leaves us with the optional of HTML5 ... but we're wondering just what it can and can't do. Is it possible to write a real application in HTML5, with grids, splitters, trees, drag-and-drop, animated charts, etc. I find it hard to believe that HTML5 could reproduce this functionality in our Silverlight 5 app. Can anyone here explain just what HTML5 is capable or incapable of doing? Cheers, Greg K
HTML5 capabilities (correction)
Correction, Prism is not the Borland product that claims to target different cross-platform GUIs, it's FireMonkeyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireMonkey -- Greg
Re: Silverlight challenge
Greg, Sorry, I was walking through Target while I read/replied :) What I was trying to say was rather than generating an image, generate a file the target application could recognise or convert from. For example, we had a client that wanted to export table results to excel so I generated a CSV file which Excel happily accepted. I haven't looked at server side office components for many years and I seem to recall they weren't particularly good. I have no idea what other formats may exist that would achieve your desired result or what tools could help you generate them. David If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... checkmate! -Zapp Brannigan, Futurama On 29 June 2013 15:29, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: How about an export button? The user would download a file suitable for the target app. Yes, but it's dependent upon the second question I posed: can I convert a Visifire chart in the SL5 app into a flattened image? I still have to look into that question. If it's possible, then it would throw a bridge halfway to Office -- Greg
Re: HTML5 capabilities (correction)
Regarding FireMonkey a couple of things to be aware of. It does not support Android, although it is slated to in the future at some time. Secondly, FireMonkey has a reputation of being very buggy in the past although I believe the latest version is better. On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: Correction, Prism is not the Borland product that claims to target different cross-platform GUIs, it's FireMonkeyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireMonkey -- Greg
Re: HTML5 capabilities
Someone mentioned Xamarin last year. It's starting to look more attractive. I'll forward the link the project boss and have a look at some of their tutorials -- Greg
RE: HTML5 capabilities
+1 for Xamarin - Full native code, cross platform development for Windows, Android, iOS and Mac OS X in C#. From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Michael Ridland Sent: Monday, 1 July 2013 9:51 AM To: ozDotNet Subject: Re: HTML5 capabilities Hi Greg We've spent the last 18 months building a mobile version of our ERP software @ www.happen.bizhttp://www.happen.biz. About 9 months of that was using html5 which we pushed to it's limits but in the end it just wasn't 'good' enough, by good enough I mean primarily fast enough. We tried out Xamarin and never looked back, we now have a rock solid mobile app which is fast and sexy. So my opinion is Xamarin Rocks. Great for c# teams. Grids, splitters, trees, drag-and-drop, animated charts - well this doesn't work on mobile devices anyway, you actually need to rethink a users interaction with your software, and rethink, and rethink. You need to also spend alot of time using other high quality mobile apps to see different ways a user can interact with your app. On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Craig van Nieuwkerk crai...@gmail.commailto:crai...@gmail.com wrote: Have you considered Xamarin? Native applications written in C# www.xamarin.comhttp://www.xamarin.com On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:11 AM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.netmailto:g...@mira.net wrote: Folks, a few times over the last year I've raised the topic of writing browser based applications that can reach the most mobile devices with the least coding effort. Sadly we learned (from the replies) that there is no easy road. It looks like you have to go native in Object C or Java, or use HTML5 and accept reduced functionality. All of these options are a rather frightening for us because we only have C++ and C# skills in the group and we'll have to hire specialists or undergo intense training. A colleague using the latest Borland C++ kits says it has a product called Prism which claims to target different platforms with a common code base. I said that sounds like black magic, but my colleague is so busy that he hasn't had time yet to evaluate Prism. A quick search hints that Prism is actually Oxygenehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_Prism, which would take us down a completely different road. So this leaves us with the optional of HTML5 ... but we're wondering just what it can and can't do. Is it possible to write a real application in HTML5, with grids, splitters, trees, drag-and-drop, animated charts, etc. I find it hard to believe that HTML5 could reproduce this functionality in our Silverlight 5 app. Can anyone here explain just what HTML5 is capable or incapable of doing? Cheers, Greg K
Re: HTML5 capabilities
Chaps, I was quite impressed by the Xamarin technical discussions on their web site. It's really expensive though, cruelly adding more costs on as you tick options for different platforms. And yes, grids splitters, etc wouldn't be used on a mobile app like they are in the full-blown SL5 app. Our app currently has a kind of drill down navigation stack which would be translate nicely in a simplified form for a small screen. Greg
Re: HTML5 capabilities
Looks interesting. Testing would be a pain, you'd need to have a device of each platform. Oh wait. I already do. :) On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 8:21 AM, Fredericks, Chris chris.frederi...@hp.comwrote: +1 for Xamarin – Full native code, cross platform development for Windows, Android, iOS and Mac OS X in C#. ** ** *From:* ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] *On Behalf Of *Michael Ridland *Sent:* Monday, 1 July 2013 9:51 AM *To:* ozDotNet *Subject:* Re: HTML5 capabilities ** ** Hi Greg ** ** We've spent the last 18 months building a mobile version of our ERP software @ www.happen.biz. About 9 months of that was using html5 which we pushed to it's limits but in the end it just wasn't 'good' enough, by good enough I mean primarily fast enough. We tried out Xamarin and never looked back, we now have a rock solid mobile app which is fast and sexy. * *** ** ** So my opinion is Xamarin Rocks. Great for c# teams. ** ** Grids, splitters, trees, drag-and-drop, animated charts - well this doesn't work on mobile devices anyway, you actually need to rethink a users interaction with your software, and rethink, and rethink. You need to also spend alot of time using other high quality mobile apps to see different ways a user can interact with your app. ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Craig van Nieuwkerk crai...@gmail.com wrote: Have you considered Xamarin? Native applications written in C# www.xamarin.com ** ** ** ** ** ** On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:11 AM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: Folks, a few times over the last year I've raised the topic of writing browser based applications that can reach the most mobile devices with the least coding effort. Sadly we learned (from the replies) that there is no easy road. It looks like you have to go native in Object C or Java, or use HTML5 and accept reduced functionality. All of these options are a rather frightening for us because we only have C++ and C# skills in the group and we'll have to hire specialists or undergo intense training. A colleague using the latest Borland C++ kits says it has a product called Prism which claims to target different platforms with a common code base. I said that sounds like black magic, but my colleague is so busy that he hasn't had time yet to evaluate Prism. A quick search hints that Prism is actually Oxygene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_Prism, which would take us down a completely different road. So this leaves us with the optional of HTML5 ... but we're wondering just what it can and can't do. Is it possible to write a real application in HTML5, with grids, splitters, trees, drag-and-drop, animated charts, etc. I find it hard to believe that HTML5 could reproduce this functionality in our Silverlight 5 app. Can anyone here explain just what HTML5 is capable or incapable of doing? Cheers, Greg K ** ** ** **
Re: HTML5 capabilities
I disagree that it is expensive. Visual Studio Ultimate is expensive. Xamarin is a tenth of the cost, and comparable with other vendors. Telerik for example. Oh you wanted Free? You could just write for all three of those platforms manually, and learn each different platform's syntax. (something I decided NOT to do some years ago, for the want of not spreading my knowledge too thin an becoming a jack of all trades, master of none.) Personally, I'd grab the Free version (that they do have), play with that until you get a feel if its going to fit the bill. (you never really know until you take it for a spin). Then upgrade and consider it an investment. You are a software developer and you need tools. If you were a carpenter, would you skimp on spending $1000 on your carpentry tools? Would you buy the crappy cheap tools or get the higher priced tools, knowing the quality of your work will be that much better? Fill your toolbox with quality tools. On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:08 AM, Stephen Price step...@perthprojects.comwrote: Looks interesting. Testing would be a pain, you'd need to have a device of each platform. Oh wait. I already do. :) On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 8:21 AM, Fredericks, Chris chris.frederi...@hp.com wrote: +1 for Xamarin – Full native code, cross platform development for Windows, Android, iOS and Mac OS X in C#. ** ** *From:* ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] *On Behalf Of *Michael Ridland *Sent:* Monday, 1 July 2013 9:51 AM *To:* ozDotNet *Subject:* Re: HTML5 capabilities ** ** Hi Greg ** ** We've spent the last 18 months building a mobile version of our ERP software @ www.happen.biz. About 9 months of that was using html5 which we pushed to it's limits but in the end it just wasn't 'good' enough, by good enough I mean primarily fast enough. We tried out Xamarin and never looked back, we now have a rock solid mobile app which is fast and sexy. ** ** So my opinion is Xamarin Rocks. Great for c# teams. ** ** Grids, splitters, trees, drag-and-drop, animated charts - well this doesn't work on mobile devices anyway, you actually need to rethink a users interaction with your software, and rethink, and rethink. You need to also spend alot of time using other high quality mobile apps to see different ways a user can interact with your app. ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Craig van Nieuwkerk crai...@gmail.com wrote: Have you considered Xamarin? Native applications written in C# www.xamarin.com ** ** ** ** ** ** On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:11 AM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: Folks, a few times over the last year I've raised the topic of writing browser based applications that can reach the most mobile devices with the least coding effort. Sadly we learned (from the replies) that there is no easy road. It looks like you have to go native in Object C or Java, or use HTML5 and accept reduced functionality. All of these options are a rather frightening for us because we only have C++ and C# skills in the group and we'll have to hire specialists or undergo intense training. A colleague using the latest Borland C++ kits says it has a product called Prism which claims to target different platforms with a common code base. I said that sounds like black magic, but my colleague is so busy that he hasn't had time yet to evaluate Prism. A quick search hints that Prism is actually Oxygene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_Prism, which would take us down a completely different road. So this leaves us with the optional of HTML5 ... but we're wondering just what it can and can't do. Is it possible to write a real application in HTML5, with grids, splitters, trees, drag-and-drop, animated charts, etc. I find it hard to believe that HTML5 could reproduce this functionality in our Silverlight 5 app. Can anyone here explain just what HTML5 is capable or incapable of doing? Cheers, Greg K ** ** ** **
Re: HTML5 capabilities
A single business level licence for 3 output platforms is $2697.30, which I think is pretty high. My 2 year Pro MSDN subscription was $3700. Luckily I won't be paying for the Xamarin if the other guys like it, as it's their business, I'll just use it. The poor bastards recently had to pay ~$1000 for SpreadheetGear and ~$1200 for C1 and ~$500 for Visifire, so it really adds up -- Greg
RE: HTML5 capabilities
Let's say you want to use Visual Studio and target at least 2 platforms (Android and iOS). I would expect that's the most common scenario. That's $2,000 per developer. Not pocket change at all. Also assuming even 'Indies' much less professionals would often be at least two developers, it doesn't take much imagination to see a ~$5,000+ investment. If you're comparing to Visual Studio Ultimate then you should also be comparing to Xamarin's Enterprise licenses which is then $4,000 per developer to target 2 platforms, ON TOP of your Visual Studio etc licenses. Unless you're a solo Indie developer who is content to use Xamarin Studio and only targeting one platform, it's expensive - which isn't a measure of price alone but what you're getting for your money. Regardless, my primary objection to Xamarin isn't the cost. It's the licensing baked into the run-time. I've been burnt too many times by frameworks with licensing checks when they're no longer supported (or are supported half-arsedly from the outset - eg Marmalade) If Xamarin would release their MonoDroid/MonoTouch/etc frameworks without the DRM (or at least move it solely to the development environment instead of run-time) it would be a different story but as it stands I refuse to make any significant investment in such an ecosystem again and would encourage others to avoid it for the same reasons. I also consider their track record for transparency about feature roadmaps and timelines. Xamarin are great at talking about what they've already released, not so great about what's coming up and feature requests. Not that Microsoft are perfect but other than for a few stand-out examples (eg XNA, x64 edit-and-continue now 8-9 years and counting) they're pretty good considering the scope of what they offer. There's also a much better community around Visual Studio which fills in a lot of the gaps when Microsoft drops the ball which Xamarin Studio simply doesn't have - another consideration in determining how 'expensive' it is (Resharper anyone?). An alternative to consider is PhoneGap. In keeping with the tradition of spontaneous statistics, I'd guess maybe 80-90% of the things people are using Mono for could be just as effectively done with PhoneGap and still give the benefit of cross-platform 'native' apps with very minimal learning curve compared to learning Objective-C, Java etc. And it's free. If you're writing a typical app and not relying on anything like MonoGame over the top of Mono, I think the trade-off of using Javascript instead of C# for the client is minor and well worth it. From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Price Sent: Monday, 1 July 2013 11:17 AM To: ozDotNet Subject: Re: HTML5 capabilities I disagree that it is expensive. Visual Studio Ultimate is expensive. Xamarin is a tenth of the cost, and comparable with other vendors. Telerik for example. Oh you wanted Free? You could just write for all three of those platforms manually, and learn each different platform's syntax. (something I decided NOT to do some years ago, for the want of not spreading my knowledge too thin an becoming a jack of all trades, master of none.) Personally, I'd grab the Free version (that they do have), play with that until you get a feel if its going to fit the bill. (you never really know until you take it for a spin). Then upgrade and consider it an investment. You are a software developer and you need tools. If you were a carpenter, would you skimp on spending $1000 on your carpentry tools? Would you buy the crappy cheap tools or get the higher priced tools, knowing the quality of your work will be that much better? Fill your toolbox with quality tools. On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:08 AM, Stephen Price step...@perthprojects.commailto:step...@perthprojects.com wrote: Looks interesting. Testing would be a pain, you'd need to have a device of each platform. Oh wait. I already do. :) On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 8:21 AM, Fredericks, Chris chris.frederi...@hp.commailto:chris.frederi...@hp.com wrote: +1 for Xamarin - Full native code, cross platform development for Windows, Android, iOS and Mac OS X in C#. From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.commailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.commailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Michael Ridland Sent: Monday, 1 July 2013 9:51 AM To: ozDotNet Subject: Re: HTML5 capabilities Hi Greg We've spent the last 18 months building a mobile version of our ERP software @ www.happen.bizhttp://www.happen.biz. About 9 months of that was using html5 which we pushed to it's limits but in the end it just wasn't 'good' enough, by good enough I mean primarily fast enough. We tried out Xamarin and never looked back, we now have a rock solid mobile app which is fast and sexy. So my opinion is Xamarin Rocks. Great for c# teams. Grids, splitters, trees, drag-and-drop, animated charts - well this
Re: HTML5 capabilities
I have used PhoneGap in conjunction with www.vsnomad.com and it is pretty good. But you are essentially still dealing with a HTML5 app that has been wrapped in a native code wrapper. I used it with jQuery Mobile and there were quite a few performance issues that needed to be fine tuned. ** ** An alternative to consider is PhoneGap. In keeping with the tradition of spontaneous statistics, I’d guess maybe 80-90% of the things people are using Mono for could be just as effectively done with PhoneGap and still give the benefit of cross-platform ‘native’ apps with very minimal learning curve compared to learning Objective-C, Java etc. And it’s free. If you’re writing a typical app and not relying on anything like MonoGame over the top of Mono, I think the trade-off of using Javascript instead of C# for the client is minor and well worth it. * * ** ** *From:* ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] *On Behalf Of *Stephen Price *Sent:* Monday, 1 July 2013 11:17 AM *To:* ozDotNet *Subject:* Re: HTML5 capabilities ** ** I disagree that it is expensive. Visual Studio Ultimate is expensive. Xamarin is a tenth of the cost, and comparable with other vendors. Telerik for example. ** ** Oh you wanted Free? You could just write for all three of those platforms manually, and learn each different platform's syntax. (something I decided NOT to do some years ago, for the want of not spreading my knowledge too thin an becoming a jack of all trades, master of none.) ** ** Personally, I'd grab the Free version (that they do have), play with that until you get a feel if its going to fit the bill. (you never really know until you take it for a spin). Then upgrade and consider it an investment. You are a software developer and you need tools. If you were a carpenter, would you skimp on spending $1000 on your carpentry tools? Would you buy the crappy cheap tools or get the higher priced tools, knowing the quality of your work will be that much better? Fill your toolbox with quality tools. ** ** On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:08 AM, Stephen Price step...@perthprojects.com wrote: Looks interesting. Testing would be a pain, you'd need to have a device of each platform. Oh wait. I already do. :) ** ** On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 8:21 AM, Fredericks, Chris chris.frederi...@hp.com wrote: +1 for Xamarin – Full native code, cross platform development for Windows, Android, iOS and Mac OS X in C#. *From:* ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] *On Behalf Of *Michael Ridland *Sent:* Monday, 1 July 2013 9:51 AM *To:* ozDotNet *Subject:* Re: HTML5 capabilities Hi Greg We've spent the last 18 months building a mobile version of our ERP software @ www.happen.biz. About 9 months of that was using html5 which we pushed to it's limits but in the end it just wasn't 'good' enough, by good enough I mean primarily fast enough. We tried out Xamarin and never looked back, we now have a rock solid mobile app which is fast and sexy. * *** So my opinion is Xamarin Rocks. Great for c# teams. Grids, splitters, trees, drag-and-drop, animated charts - well this doesn't work on mobile devices anyway, you actually need to rethink a users interaction with your software, and rethink, and rethink. You need to also spend alot of time using other high quality mobile apps to see different ways a user can interact with your app. On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Craig van Nieuwkerk crai...@gmail.com wrote: Have you considered Xamarin? Native applications written in C# www.xamarin.com On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:11 AM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: Folks, a few times over the last year I've raised the topic of writing browser based applications that can reach the most mobile devices with the least coding effort. Sadly we learned (from the replies) that there is no easy road. It looks like you have to go native in Object C or Java, or use HTML5 and accept reduced functionality. All of these options are a rather frightening for us because we only have C++ and C# skills in the group and we'll have to hire specialists or undergo intense training. A colleague using the latest Borland C++ kits says it has a product called Prism which claims to target different platforms with a common code base. I said that sounds like black magic, but my colleague is so busy that he hasn't had time yet to evaluate Prism. A quick search hints that Prism is actually Oxygene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_Prism, which would take us down a completely different road. So this leaves us with the optional of HTML5 ... but we're wondering just what it can and can't do. Is it possible to write a real application in HTML5, with grids,
Re: HTML5 capabilities
On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 11:59 AM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: A single business level licence for 3 output platforms is $2697.30, which I think is pretty high. My 2 year Pro MSDN subscription was $3700. That is chump change for any software project I've ever worked on and MSDN doesn't build for Android or iOS. The value prop is that you build one code base across all platforms with UX consistent for that platform so it is 'first class' on that platform. I don't know what the value is I would put on that, but if I was writing mobile apps for money and have a number of developers on staff full-time doing apps, I would think the value is easily equivalent to one or two FTEs. What's the other option? A mac guy(s) in the corner doin mac stuff in objective c + open gl, and android guy in another corner doing android stuff in Java + renderscript + open gl, etc. Little to no common skills. Other alternative is one skill base of people on what is largely one code base. David Connors da...@connors.com | 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
Re: HTML5 capabilities
On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Craig van Nieuwkerk crai...@gmail.comwrote: I have used PhoneGap in conjunction with www.vsnomad.com and it is pretty good. But you are essentially still dealing with a HTML5 app that has been wrapped in a native code wrapper. I used it with jQuery Mobile and there were quite a few performance issues that needed to be fine tuned. You also need to be clear on what your type of app is. If you're writing a 'businessy' app with data display, query, etc it is probably fine. There are guys out there who wrote a Fastbook (http://fb.html5isready.com/) which proves the point for simple information display-oriented applications (thought I think they prove that Facebook's mobile app is slow, not that theirs is fast). If you're trying to write Bad Piggies, then HTML is a non-starter on mobile devices. David.
Re: HTML5 capabilities
I tend to agree. $3700 is a lot if you just want to play at home I'm a one-man business, so that's a pretty frightening cheque to write every 2 years (I could fly business class to a Hawaiian holiday for that!!). Stephen basically said the same thing as my wife does every two years when she tries to cheer me up ... it's your job so you need the right stuff, and it's a tax deduction -- Greg
RE: HTML5 capabilities
You may want to look at specific videos of interest to you from Xamarin's recent Evolve seminar - http://blog.xamarin.com/all-evolve-session-videos-now-available/ From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Greg Keogh Sent: Monday, 1 July 2013 9:54 AM To: ozDotNet Subject: Re: HTML5 capabilities Someone mentioned Xamarin last year. It's starting to look more attractive. I'll forward the link the project boss and have a look at some of their tutorials -- Greg
RE: HTML5 capabilities
Sorry Greg, a better link - http://xamarin.com/evolve/2013 From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Fredericks, Chris Sent: Monday, 1 July 2013 1:47 PM To: ozDotNet Subject: RE: HTML5 capabilities You may want to look at specific videos of interest to you from Xamarin's recent Evolve seminar - http://blog.xamarin.com/all-evolve-session-videos-now-available/ From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.commailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Greg Keogh Sent: Monday, 1 July 2013 9:54 AM To: ozDotNet Subject: Re: HTML5 capabilities Someone mentioned Xamarin last year. It's starting to look more attractive. I'll forward the link the project boss and have a look at some of their tutorials -- Greg
CoLocation in Melbourne going cheap[OT]
Anyone need some RU's space in a datacentre, we have some surplus RU's going cheap if anyone is interested? We have space in PACNET datacentre in Melbourne in a new facility. Anthony
Re: HTML5 capabilities
Wait, what? You're wife is saying to spend the money? And you dare argue the point? It's your toolbox for your job. You can't scrimp on your tools in your toolbox. (and sure, I totally get there are some tools that are overpriced for what they do, and others that provide value for money...). I'm regularly frustrated by Adobe products. I don't need them often so make do with the old version I have rather than spend big dollars on something I rarely use. My wife would say to spend the money on the Hawaiian holiday. Personally, I'd rather stay home for a week than go away for a week. The Internet is always slower, and I feel a sense of loss when I get home and only have memories (not always good ones either!). You could buy a sweet laptop for that, and you get to keep it after you get back from spending the $$. Each and to their own I guess. :) On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: I tend to agree. $3700 is a lot if you just want to play at home I'm a one-man business, so that's a pretty frightening cheque to write every 2 years (I could fly business class to a Hawaiian holiday for that!!). Stephen basically said the same thing as my wife does every two years when she tries to cheer me up ... it's your job so you need the right stuff, and it's a tax deduction -- Greg
Re: HTML5 capabilities
+1 the comment on DRM licensing. It's got no place in dev tools. On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Nathan Chere nathan.ch...@saiglobal.comwrote: Let’s say you want to use Visual Studio and target at least 2 platforms (Android and iOS). I would expect that’s the most common scenario. That’s $2,000 per developer. Not pocket change at all. Also assuming even ‘Indies’ much less professionals would often be at least two developers, it doesn’t take much imagination to see a ~$5,000+ investment. If you’re comparing to Visual Studio Ultimate then you should also be comparing to Xamarin’s Enterprise licenses which is then $4,000 per developer to target 2 platforms, ON TOP of your Visual Studio etc licenses. Unless you’re a solo “Indie” developer who is content to use Xamarin Studio and only targeting one platform, it’s *expensive – *which isn’t a measure of price alone but what you’re getting for your money. ** ** Regardless, my primary objection to Xamarin isn’t the cost. It’s the licensing baked into the run-time. I’ve been burnt too many times by frameworks with licensing checks when they’re no longer supported (or are supported half-arsedly from the outset – eg Marmalade) If Xamarin would release their MonoDroid/MonoTouch/etc frameworks without the DRM (or at least move it solely to the development environment instead of run-time) it would be a different story but as it stands I refuse to make any significant investment in such an ecosystem again and would encourage others to avoid it for the same reasons. ** ** I also consider their track record for transparency about feature roadmaps and timelines. Xamarin are great at talking about what they’ve already released, not so great about what’s coming up and feature requests. Not that Microsoft are perfect but other than for a few stand-out examples (eg XNA, x64 edit-and-continue now 8-9 years and counting) they’re pretty good considering the scope of what they offer. There’s also a much better community around Visual Studio which fills in a lot of the gaps when Microsoft drops the ball which Xamarin Studio simply doesn’t have – another consideration in determining how ‘expensive’ it is (Resharper anyone?).*** * ** ** An alternative to consider is PhoneGap. In keeping with the tradition of spontaneous statistics, I’d guess maybe 80-90% of the things people are using Mono for could be just as effectively done with PhoneGap and still give the benefit of cross-platform ‘native’ apps with very minimal learning curve compared to learning Objective-C, Java etc. And it’s free. If you’re writing a typical app and not relying on anything like MonoGame over the top of Mono, I think the trade-off of using Javascript instead of C# for the client is minor and well worth it. * * ** ** *From:* ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] *On Behalf Of *Stephen Price *Sent:* Monday, 1 July 2013 11:17 AM *To:* ozDotNet *Subject:* Re: HTML5 capabilities ** ** I disagree that it is expensive. Visual Studio Ultimate is expensive. Xamarin is a tenth of the cost, and comparable with other vendors. Telerik for example. ** ** Oh you wanted Free? You could just write for all three of those platforms manually, and learn each different platform's syntax. (something I decided NOT to do some years ago, for the want of not spreading my knowledge too thin an becoming a jack of all trades, master of none.) ** ** Personally, I'd grab the Free version (that they do have), play with that until you get a feel if its going to fit the bill. (you never really know until you take it for a spin). Then upgrade and consider it an investment. You are a software developer and you need tools. If you were a carpenter, would you skimp on spending $1000 on your carpentry tools? Would you buy the crappy cheap tools or get the higher priced tools, knowing the quality of your work will be that much better? Fill your toolbox with quality tools. ** ** On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:08 AM, Stephen Price step...@perthprojects.com wrote: Looks interesting. Testing would be a pain, you'd need to have a device of each platform. Oh wait. I already do. :) ** ** On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 8:21 AM, Fredericks, Chris chris.frederi...@hp.com wrote: +1 for Xamarin – Full native code, cross platform development for Windows, Android, iOS and Mac OS X in C#. *From:* ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] *On Behalf Of *Michael Ridland *Sent:* Monday, 1 July 2013 9:51 AM *To:* ozDotNet *Subject:* Re: HTML5 capabilities Hi Greg We've spent the last 18 months building a mobile version of our ERP software @ www.happen.biz. About 9 months of that was using html5 which we pushed to it's limits but in the end it just wasn't 'good' enough, by good enough I mean primarily fast enough. We tried out
Re: HTML5 capabilities
The thing to remember about HTML5 is that it is a very fast moving target as there is a lot of new architectures relying on it, ie. the new Tizen phones/tablets (was meego, maemo etc), and chrome OS, that Samsung and Google are funnelling a LOT of money into. This being said some of the new technologies that is making the old speed problems go away is things like Internet explorer now supports WebGL like all the other browsers (for display speed) and the most interesting is asm.js, which the new builds of firefox includes, that compiles on the fly to native code to give you a considerable improvement in the sections of your code that you think needs it. With this in mind and the fact that companies cannot afford to let HTML5 be a second class citizen, it may be something you need to look at depending on when you are releasing your software and what will be available to you at that time. Matt On 01/07/13 12:23, David Connors wrote: On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Craig van Nieuwkerk crai...@gmail.com wrote: I have used PhoneGap in conjunction with www.vsnomad.com and it is pretty good. But you are essentially still dealing with a HTML5 app that has been wrapped in a native code wrapper. I used it with jQuery Mobile and there were quite a few performance issues that needed to be fine tuned. You also need to be clear on what your type of app is. If you're writing a 'businessy' app with data display, query, etc it is probably fine. There are guys out there who wrote a Fastbook (http://fb.html5isready.com/) which proves the point for simple information display-oriented applications (thought I think they prove that Facebook's mobile app is slow, not that theirs is fast). If you're trying to write Bad Piggies, then HTML is a non-starter on mobile devices. David.
