While it is fine to pay for dev tools, IDE, I find unacceptable that the language (a raw compiler) and libraries have a shareware ($400-$2000?) or any other commercial model.
At least they have a free version to play with. They didn't even have that a while ago.
I'm not in the mobile apps business, but if I were, I would consider the price worth it.
As a freelancer, I see a lot of people requesting Android and iOS apps. I don't see myself developing in both Objective-C and Java. With Xamarin I could cover three platforms with one language, which also happens to be my language of choice for productivity.
I kinda thought the same thing and its especially attractive since I've written a lot of C# code. But I discovered that the Mono mobile framework wraps the respective devices UI APIs fairly faithfully - and learning those is the more laborious part. In other words, it doesn't abstract all of the devices and you still need to understand how to code for each one. You just get to do it in C#.
I still think it has great value and you most likely could share some of your code between devices. It just wasn't as seamless as I had thought supporting multiple devices. I think HTML based apps do have that one advantage.
The MvvmCross pattern they've been promoting seems promising for maximizing shared code. We've got the most benefit from sharing stuff like libs, network code, GLES, etc. I've come to the conclusion that the thin platform API is an advantage because I'm so, so tired of punching holes through crappy abstractions.
I think that the language (and its "batteries", i.e. std libs) should be separated from the product, because products die.
Xamarin model - while it can be fine for a short stint, I don't think it is good for a long-term relationship.
For me, Xamarin developer is kind of associated with Clarion developer, PowerBuilder developer.
You make a fair point and I normally share your view about compilers and tools. I think the Xamarin situation is complex, though, because most of the product is already open source. The C# compiler and x86 runtime, the standard libs (System.*), and the IDE (monodevelop aka Xamarin Studio) are all open source; and the platform bindings are a thin, almost 1:1 layer covering the iOS and android APIs. What you're really paying for is the AOT mechanism, packaging, and ARM runtime -- it's about all that's left they can sell. It's also worth noting that a ton of their code goes back into mono and associated projects.
I still think you have a good point, and I agree, but as for myself, I decided to make an exception in this case. I don't think it's quite as bad as PowerBuilder or Clarion at least.
to be fair monodevelop and xamarin studio are not equal. The first is low supported and full of bug but free ( i think that is voluntary), the second is not free (at least not if you want to do something decent) and is the main focus of xamarin.
I would say they try to "trap" you in mono with monodevelop to then oblige you to buy something more decent as xamarin studio.
Xamarin Studio and MonoDevelop are the exact same code base.
The only difference is that Xamarin Studio contains the iOS and Android plugins, plus adds a Xamarin Branding (branding is completely pluggable in MonoDevelop)
Mostly because they would have to provide their own Mono runtime as there's too many variations in the vast number of Linux Distros out there. That combined with demand is much lower than that of Windows and OSX for Mono.
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