Monotouch for cross platform mobile apps

[Tyler White]

Anybody using or have heard of Monotouch for making iOS apps? http://xamarin.com/monotouch. You write in C# and it all compiles out into Obj-C (or Java for Android and whatever language windows phones use). Apparently you can also mix and match libraries from C#,C, and Obj-C so you don't loose out on all the good frameworks. It might be a good option for those of us who want to get into mobile but don't want to commit to a specific platform. Also if you're already fluent with C# it's like you've been gifted with superpowers. I can't vouch for the quality or complexity that compiled apps can produce. I just heard about this at a coding dojo in Argentina. Sounds like another cross platform option like HTML5 apps.

Sent from my iPhone 4

[Marcus G. Daniels]

On 2/8/2012 7:23 PM, Tyler White wrote:
> You write in C# and it all compiles out into Obj-C (or Java for Android and whatever language windows phones use).

I've used Mono, but not MonoTouch. My read is that MonoTouch adds
Objective C runtime support to a special CLR-like (.NET) profile which
is natively compiled. Which is to say it is not a source to source
compiler, but that the MonoTouch runtime library can send and receive
messages to/from Objective-C land. (That doesn't require any compiler
support.) For Android, it says it is managed code, which means there
is Mono virtual machine (with just-in-time compiler, etc).

In principle, MonoTouch can also facilitate use of advanced programming
languages like F#.
Performance might be a reason to use MonoTouch over HTML5, but the
comparisons I've run between the latest JavaScript JITs and Mono's JIT
are in the same ballpark (and closing in on Java). I think the main
benefit of Mono is to benefit from static typing, relatively evolved
libraries from the .NET world and the multi-language capability. Mono
and .NET are actually ECMA standards, in spite of the hostile reception
Mono often received from the open source Linux developer community.

Marcus