Introduction to Android native development using Xamarin’s Mono for android.

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It’s been couple of months since I’ve had a chance to post here, but it’s been an amazing time for me in terms of adapting new/old technologies for my development skills, and I have a bag full of new knowledge which has been accumulated and is waiting to be put on the blog, So in the coming weeks I’ll start posting a lot of code samples, architectural guidelines and how-to-do’s.

In My professional career as a software developer, the first contact I had with OOP was with C#, back in 2007 as part of a course I took for web development which involved mostly ASP.Net, Windows forms and at the time - the diapers of WPF and Silverlight which were the latest buzz by Microsoft along with c# 3.0 and the 2.5 .Net framework.

As time passed, I took on Java in order to acquire the skills which will allow me to program for the Android platform, which is my (Native) passion in the last 3 years or so. Developing for Android in Java is really something all java programmers are able to adapt to as well as J2ME developers or any other flavor of Java.

So six months ago I found myself with extensive experience in Android with Java, and some basic skills of C#, what can I say? No knowledge can be spared or forgotten. I took on a new project which involved using C# as the programming language, and was bound to provide a cross platform native solution utilizing the extensive capabilities of C# with a framework called Xamarin.

To make a long story short, the Xamarin project information can be found here.

I was skeptical at first to say the least, but I was so wrong, let me explain why:

Using C# as the language I code with, along with the .Net framework’s latest features like the TPL library, or LINQ has made my life so much easier and simplified. The code became shorter and cleaner which made it more maintainable and easier to inject changes when needed.

SHARED CODE – the shared code which write (ONCE!) can serve all native platforms when needed (Android, iOS, Mac, Win Phone, Win8).

Ok, but what to I mean by shared code? It’s basically a C# class library project which acts as a service for the Android/iOS or any other native client platform project.

Components which can be shared with all projects:

1. Database handling (Creation, CRUD operation, and all SQLITE queries on the client)

2. Data Models – all the classes representing the entities in the project are shared

3. SQLite.Net – an ORM which allows me to map the objects to SQLite tables simplifies the entire process of managing transaction with the db.

4. LINQ – querying and iterating over collections, clean short code

5. Http request handling is done with RestSharp library which encapsulates so much boilerplate code such as managing sessions, cookies and request response handling.

6. Json.Net – a really easy to use Json Parser which was proven to be very efficient

7. Utilizing MVVM – simplifies data binding using the ViewModels (Part of the .Net framework) which makes it easy to manage the data binding the notifying the UI with changes that happen in the models using events

8. Components from the Xamarin Component store, such as Xamarin.Mobile which allows cross platform access to contacts API, camera API, and GeoLocation.

9. Built-in MVVM allows me to have an Architecture which is easy to maintain and share across platforms.

I’m sure that I’ve missed some, but you can obviously get the picture. More time can and should be spent on providing an amazing user experience rather than focusing the time on mostly boilerplate code which can be a huge hassle when programming for several platforms, each with its own advantages and disadvantages which are managed separately.

In the following weeks I’ll start posting useful data which makes my life as a developer easier which I think you might find useful and make your coding experience better and much less frustrating.

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