To Xamarin with Love

Xamarin Evolve just concluded. And there's no better time to write this post. I'm not writing anything new or even anything related to announcements that happened there. I am writing this because recently I got a chance to work with Android using Java. And the experience was not at all good. And the reason is, not so surprisingly, Java.

I will not explain anything; instead I'll just copy-paste three code snippets. All are doing the same thing but they are all in different languages. Now, for the people who think that language doesn't make any difference—this post is for them. Here I am not including any frameworks like Reactive UI or Xamarin.Forms. If I include them, then this competition will be one-sided. (Xamarin sided)

Code Snippet in Java public class MainActivity extends Activity { int count = 0; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); setEvents(); } private void setEvents() { final Button mybutton = (Button) this.findViewById(R.id.myButton); mybutton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub mybutton.setText(String.valueOf(count)); } }); final TextView seekbarView = (TextView) this.findViewById(R.id.seekbarTextView); SeekBar seekbar = (SeekBar) this.findViewById(R.id.seekBar1); seekbar.setOnSeekBarChangeListener(new OnSeekBarChangeListener() { int progressed = 0; @Override public void onStopTrackingTouch(SeekBar seekBar) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub seekbarView.setText(String.valueOf(progressed)); } @Override public void onStartTrackingTouch(SeekBar seekBar) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub } @Override public void onProgressChanged(SeekBar seekBar, int progress, boolean fromUser) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub progressed = progress; } }); CheckBox checkbox = (CheckBox) this.findViewById(R.id.checkBox1); checkbox.setOnCheckedChangeListener(new OnCheckedChangeListener() { @Override public void onCheckedChanged(CompoundButton buttonView, boolean isChecked) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub Log.i("info","Checkbox is " + String.valueOf(isChecked)); } }); } }

Code Snippet in C#

[Activity (Label = "XamarinBlog", MainLauncher = true, Icon = "@drawable/icon")]
	public class MainActivity : Activity
	{
		int count = 1;

		protected override void OnCreate (Bundle bundle)
		{
			base.OnCreate (bundle);

			// Set our view from the "main" layout resource
			SetContentView (Resource.Layout.Main);
			var button = this.FindViewById<Button> (Resource.Id.myButton);
			button.Click += (sender, e) => {
				button.Text = String.Format("{0} clicks",count);
				count++;
			};

			var seekbarTextView = this.FindViewById<TextView> (Resource.Id.seekbarTextView);
			var seekbar = this.FindViewById<SeekBar> (Resource.Id.seekBar1);
			seekbar.ProgressChanged += (sender, e) => {
				seekbarTextView.Text = String.Format("The value of seekbar is {0}", e.Progress);
			};

			var checkbox = this.FindViewById<CheckBox> (Resource.Id.checkBox1);

			checkbox.CheckedChange += (sender, e) => {
				Console.WriteLine("Checked changed!");
			};
		}
	}

Code Snippet in F#

[<Activity(Label = "XamarinBlog", MainLauncher = true)>]
type MainActivity() = 
    inherit Activity()
    let mutable count : int = 1
    override this.OnCreate(bundle) = 
        base.OnCreate(bundle)
        // Set our view from the "main" layout resource
        this.SetContentView(Resource_Layout.Main)
        // Get our button from the layout resource, and attach an event to it
        let button = this.FindViewById<Button>(Resource_Id.myButton)
        button.Click.Add(fun args -> 
            button.Text <- sprintf "%d clicks!" count
            count <- count + 1)
        let seekbarTextView = this.FindViewById<TextView>(Resource_Id.seekbarTextView)
        let seekbar = this.FindViewById<SeekBar>(Resource_Id.seekBar1)
        seekbar.ProgressChanged.Add
            (fun args -> seekbarTextView.Text <- sprintf "The value of seekbar is %A" args.Progress)

        let checkbox = this.FindViewById<CheckBox>(Resource_Id.checkBox1)
        checkbox.CheckedChange.Add(fun args -> printfn "Check changed")

Hope you can see what I am trying to say here. I can become a good typist by writing code in Java but definitely not a good programmer. I don't know from which planet Java has incorporated its Object Oriented model.

Xamarin is solving many problems by supporting C# and F# for Android development.

<3<3<3 Xamarin

You can also compare code between C# and F# but don't tell anyone—right now I am bashing Java in this post. :P