Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2021

Wow, the Xamarin blog tells us that Xamarin 3.0 is out, and that it's got this great new package of features to make creating cross-platform UIs VB6 IDE easy called Xamarin.Forms. Awesome, right? Let's download the new version.

Got it. And now to open a new project.

Take one didn't work out so well.

Okay, let's close it and try again with a new Xamarin.Forms project. First, it didn't give me all three projects like it said it would, only Android. And then, when I ran the Hello, World that was preconfigured...

Wow. That was great fun. I can't try it out without spending $299.

Why let the starter version create the project type if I can't even F5 the out of the box skeleton?

Looks neat and all, but I think I'm back to where I was yesterday, finally getting iOS UIs created programmatically, skipping Interface Builder entirely. Actually insanely easy, and I'm upset I didn't start doing this months ago in what little iOS Xamarin time I can squeak out.

UPDATE: From today's (5/30) webinar:

Q: Any chance we can get Xamarin.Forms working with the starter edition? Right now, it's past the size the starter lets you compile.
A: We're looking into that. :-)

Labels: android, c#, fail, gui, ios, xamarin

Evil Brain Jono's Natural Log:

It's not like we weren't warned. Lots of people in the community tried to tell us that this was a bad idea. But somehow, despite being an ostensibly community-driven organization, somewhere along the line we learned to tune out naysayers from the community.
...
I've been thinking a lot about the fundamental disconnect between the developers and the users. I think it comes down to: Software developers have a perverse habit of thinking of updates/new releases as a good thing.
...
Only after I heard from dozens of different users that the rapid release process had ruined Firefox did I finally get it through my thick skull: releasing an update is practically an act of aggression against your users...

So many companies release updates which radically change the interface for no significant gain -- they seem to be moving sideways rather than forward, changing things around for the sake of change.... I've come to the extremely humbling realization athat the single best thing most companies could do to improve usability is to stop changing the UI so often! Let it remain stable long enough for us to learn it and get good at it. There's no UI better than one you already know, and no UI worse than one you thought you knew but now have to relearn.

Bold emphasis mine.

For Firefox extension developers (and I've done a little), the real take-home is here: "Worse yet, we didn't do enough to preserve add-on compatibility, making the updates extremely disruptive to people who depended on certain add-ons; and we kept going with our old version-numbering scheme even though the meaning of the numbers had changed completely, leading to mass confusion."

Okay, also useful (this is becoming a "quotes to self" post): "Your users are temporarily tolerating your software because it's the least horrible option they have -- for now -- to meet some need."

The post is more than worth reading for anyone working with software development.

(discovered via link shared in the Real Software blog)

Labels: dancing moons, development, gui, mozilla, noteToSelf

title: Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude.	descrip: One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!!! Back-up your data and, when you bike, always wear white. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate links in green.
x MarkUpDown is the best Markdown editor for professionals on Windows 10. It includes two-pane live preview, in-app uploads to imgur for image hosting, and MultiMarkdown table support. Features you won't find anywhere else include... MarkUpDown Multiline Table & Bootstrap Grid support. Beautiful Easy Actions that keep the Markdown flowing. HTML paste to paste HTML source into your documents. You've wasted more than $15 of your time looking for a great Markdown editor. Stop looking. MarkUpDown is the app you're looking for. Learn more or head over to the 'Store now!

Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Let's play with Xamarin Forms!!1! Or not. Wow, the Xamarin blog tells us that Xamarin 3.0 is out, and that it's got this great new package of features to make creating cross-platform UIs VB6 IDE easy called Xamarin.Forms. Awesome, right? Let's download the new version. Got it. And now to open a new project. Take one didn't work out so well. Okay, let's close it and try again with a new Xamarin.Forms project. First, it didn't give me all three projects like it said it would, only Android. And then, when I ran the Hello, World that was preconfigured... Wow. That was great fun. I can't try it out without spending $299. Why let the starter version create the project type if I can't even F5 the out of the box skeleton? Looks neat and all, but I think I'm back to where I was yesterday, finally getting iOS UIs created programmatically, skipping Interface Builder entirely. Actually insanely easy, and I'm upset I didn't start doing this months ago in what little iOS Xamarin time I can squeak out. UPDATE: From today's (5/30) webinar: Q: Any chance we can get Xamarin.Forms working with the starter edition? Right now, it's past the size the starter lets you compile. A: We're looking into that. :-) Labels: android, c#, fail, gui, ios, xamarin posted by ruffin at 5/28/2014 07:07:00 PM

Thursday, August 02, 2012
Crazy idea, that. Separate UI from backend development? Evil Brain Jono's Natural Log: Maybe software projects ought to design their architecture so they can do security/performance updates in separate development branches from UI-relevant updates? From the follow-up to the post I quoted from extensively in my last post. Really? You should design an app to abstract the UI from the engine? Crazy idea, that. Labels: development, gui, mozilla posted by ruffin at 8/02/2012 09:31:00 AM

Why releasing updates rapidly is A Bad Thing Evil Brain Jono's Natural Log: It's not like we weren't warned. Lots of people in the community tried to tell us that this was a bad idea. But somehow, despite being an ostensibly community-driven organization, somewhere along the line we learned to tune out naysayers from the community. ... I've been thinking a lot about the fundamental disconnect between the developers and the users. I think it comes down to: Software developers have a perverse habit of thinking of updates/new releases as a good thing. ... Only after I heard from dozens of different users that the rapid release process had ruined Firefox did I finally get it through my thick skull: releasing an update is practically an act of aggression against your users... So many companies release updates which radically change the interface for no significant gain -- they seem to be moving sideways rather than forward, changing things around for the sake of change.... I've come to the extremely humbling realization athat the single best thing most companies could do to improve usability is to stop changing the UI so often! Let it remain stable long enough for us to learn it and get good at it. There's no UI better than one you already know, and no UI worse than one you thought you knew but now have to relearn. Bold emphasis mine. For Firefox extension developers (and I've done a little), the real take-home is here: "Worse yet, we didn't do enough to preserve add-on compatibility, making the updates extremely disruptive to people who depended on certain add-ons; and we kept going with our old version-numbering scheme even though the meaning of the numbers had changed completely, leading to mass confusion." Okay, also useful (this is becoming a "quotes to self" post): "Your users are temporarily tolerating your software because it's the least horrible option they have -- for now -- to meet some need." The post is more than worth reading for anyone working with software development. (discovered via link shared in the Real Software blog) Labels: dancing moons, development, gui, mozilla, noteToSelf posted by ruffin at 8/02/2012 09:17:00 AM

<< Older \| Newer >>