codename one

kolaval

kolaval

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Hi

Xamarin licensing is a tad expensive for creating one IOS app(and we will need 2 licenses so someone else can support when I'm on leave).

Has anyone created an app in codename one for IOS?
Is it worth while digging into it, considering I am proficient in android development?
 
Codename One is a great concept, but is a genuine pain to work with. I speak from experience. Best advice is stick with native code or try phonegap.
 
aigle2am said:
Codename One is a great concept, but is a genuine pain to work with. I speak from experience. Best advice is stick with native code or try phonegap.
Click to expand...

Can you maybe go into details, I played with it quite a lot and am pretty happy with it. Its way easier for me coming from a Swing background.
 
Well I need to do an app that can consume web-services, store data in a db and display it to the user.
So not something overly difficult, but objective-c is such a pain in the butt to learn.
 
kolaval said:
Well I need to do an app that can consume web-services, store data in a db and display it to the user.
So not something overly difficult, but objective-c is such a pain in the butt to learn.
Click to expand...

This is pretty close to what I'm doing, was pretty trivial to get it going. Its free for the most part so the only harm would be a bit of time wasted if you don't like it. Not to say that your time isn't valuable but the value of using Java over Objective-C or C# to me is a HUGE value.
 
No its a company internal app so we don't ship thru the store. But people have done it, I looked thru their gallery before starting in their home page so it seems to be working for itunes/play.
 
My company uses codename one for for andriod, j2me and blackberry. The iOS app has some issues so we have not deployed it yet. I still recommend PhoneGap for a simple app that does not require too much native interfaces. But native is always the best method.
 
What didn't work for you on iOS? Did you ask in the discussion forum?
They seem pretty helpful there.

I tried playing with PhoneGap before I picked Codename One but my JavaScript is just awful and my CSS is worse.
 
The problem with objective-c is finding skill in it.
If I do it in objective-c then only I can fix and maintain it. And whilst that sounds good, it means being on 24/7 support .I'm already solely responsible for the Android and mobile web dev and I constantly get issues to handle even on leave.

At least with codename one and xamarin you can hand over to a Java or c# dev.
 
Last edited:
aigle2am said:
It was a UI issue. Still need to do some testing to find the issue.
Click to expand...

That sounds a bit tame especially considering you still use Codename One for other platforms, isn't it something that can be fixed?
I'm asking because your first post was so adamantly anti Codename One and I honestly don't see what's not to like?
 
I found the windows phone 8 support not very good. Dropdown menus for example were transparent and looked messy. Xamarin is a good platform but it is pricey.
 
You see the 'emulator' they use is not really an emulator, more of a simulator so testing on an actual device is extremely important. And you cannot have two people work on a project simultaneously as the theme.res is a binary file so it will corrupt on SVN.
 
aigle2am said:
You see the 'emulator' they use is not really an emulator, more of a simulator so testing on an actual device is extremely important. And you cannot have two people work on a project simultaneously as the theme.res is a binary file so it will corrupt on SVN.
Click to expand...

Yes that is true about the simulator, but you always have to do actual device testing regardless so this isn't a big deal for me. I like that its way faster than Androids emulator though.

They have XML support for the resource files, I didn't check it out since I'm the only guy working on this project http://www.codenameone.com/3/post/2013/08/teamwork-and-other-things.html do you keep up with the blog/mailing list? One of the things I like is that its a very active developer community and you do see things moving.
 
kolaval said:
Hi

Xamarin licensing is a tad expensive for creating one IOS app(and we will need 2 licenses so someone else can support when I'm on leave).

Has anyone created an app in codename one for IOS?
Is it worth while digging into it, considering I am proficient in android development?
Click to expand...

The only environments that offer full unfettered access to the iOS frameworks in my experience is Objective-C or Xamarin.

If you compare annual costs:
1. Apple: $99 per individual developer license for on device testing / app store deployment or $299 for an in-house distribution license.
2. Xamarin (costs on top of Apple): $299 per individual developer license (typically business licenses won't be required when your data feeds are from a web service, i.e. Avoids direct sqlclient)
3. Codenameone (costs on top of Apple): $849 per license that supports on device testing (equivalent license to Xamarin)

Honestly I don't get why you think Xamarin is expensive; it's only expensive when compared to Objective-C. For a company these costs should surely not be such an issue?

Personally I prefer the native options; Objective-C for Mac / iOS, C# for Windows, Java for Android -- anything else is just going to cost you extra in the long run.

Plus I don't believe the transition for C# and Java developers to Objective-C is really that difficult; especially now that memory management is so simple with ARC (Automatic Reference Counting -- no more retain / release / dealloc plumbing)
 
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[)roi(];11565435 said:
2. Xamarin (costs on top of Apple): $299 per individual developer license (typically business licenses won't be required when your data feeds are from a web service, i.e. Avoids direct sqlclient)
3. Codenameone (costs on top of Apple): $849 per license that supports on device testing (equivalent license to Xamarin)
Click to expand...

I did not know about the $849 codenameone costs.

As a developer I would learn objective c. Ios will not disappear soon, so it's a skill on my cv.

But as I said in my previous posts, it is a problem since then I'm the only one in the department that knows objective c and hence the only one to support it.
 
[)roi(];11565435 said:
3. Codenameone (costs on top of Apple): $849 per license that supports on device testing (equivalent license to Xamarin)
Click to expand...

Nonsense, Codename One is free or $9 per month.
You are confusing device unit testing with actually building/running & shipping on a device.
 
invalidname said:
Nonsense, Codename One is free or $9 per month.
You are confusing device unit testing with actually building/running & shipping on a device.
Click to expand...
The only one that is truly "free" is Objective-C.

Separating any core functionality to make an inferior marketed solution look more attractive is ludicrous, but I guess when one considers the massive gap in their support of the full iOS API, they were left with no choice but to resort to marketing ploys to gain some foothold.

I stand by my previous response: It's always best to use the Objective-C for iOS; those that don't always end up making unnecessary compromises; in this case it's the inability to access most of the iOS API. Xamarin being the only exception to this.
 
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