There has been a significant increase in the number of mobile applications being developed in the present day. This has given rise to a new trend of what we’ve commonly known as cross-platform development of mobile applications. Out of the many platforms available in the market, it is Xamarin which has seen the most exponential growth in terms of users. Xamarin offers an advantage to developers and allows them to use a singular codebase across different mobile operating platforms.
What is Xamarin?
To put it in the most simplistic words, Xamarin is a framework that enables developers to create applications swiftly, which can be used either in iOS or Android Operating systems. All this with the help of a singular code written in C#. As a developer just imagine how easy would your work become if you could develop apps for two different operating systems with the help of a single codebase. Using a cross development platform like Xamarin helps to save time, effort, and money.
Why use Xamarin?
Improved Efficiency and Stability
The sole principle of sharing code between applications allows developers to work efficiently and enables them to roll out apps faster. Fewer lines of code add additional stability without compromising on the quality of the product.
Integrated Monitoring and Testing Tools
Xamarin not only provides a development environment for ease of cross-platform development but also provides tools like Xamarin Insight and Testing Cloud. These tools provide developers and QA personnel the required parameters to monitor and test the efficiency and stability of mobile applications. Therefore, eliminating the need for any third-party applications.
Consistent Quality and Standards
It is often thought that Xamarin being a cross-platform development, there will be conflict in the quality and visual look and feel. With Xamarin you can create mobile applications that are native, visually appealing, and abide by the platforms interface conventions and standards.
Easier Maintenance and Support
With the core principle of lesser code, it becomes easier to perform periodic maintenance and provide support. A short-code implies that it is easier for developers to perform changes, enhancements, and any such operations with ease. This also saves time without needing to look through thousands of lines of code.
Open Source
As is the advantage with many Open Source software, Xamarin has numerous components available that can be used by all developers. The secondary benefit that any Open Source software has is the vast community of developers. Open Source communities have well-researched forums where a majority of the issues have already been discussed.
Platforms Support by Xamarin
Xamarin offers mainly three choices of platform support:
- Visual Studio on Windows: Visual Studio allows you to develop both Android and iOS apps natively on your Windows Machine. But, to test your iOS application you would require a networked Mac system at your disposal.
- Xamarin Studio on Windows: Xamarin provides its very own Integrated Development Environment in the form of Xamarin Studio. But just like in the case of Visual Studio, access to a networked Mac is required for testing iOS apps.
- Xamarin Studio on Mac: Xamarin offers seamless integration with Xcode, thus making it a breeze to develop iOS and Android applications.
Xamarin might not be the perfect solution to having a cross-platform development application, but it does minimize time and effort. When the application is run in addition to its additional tools there is an overall increase in efficiency and application stability.
Let us develop your iOS and Android apps with Xamarin
As a business owner if you are looking to have an application for iOS and Android, then Xamarin is the safest choice to go with. AVI Web Solutions offers clients a diversified team of professions having exhaustive experience in developing cross-platform applications using Xamarin. We ensure that teams utilize their years of experience and the potential to deliver flawless products. At AVI Web Solutions we possess the necessary skills and experience to serve you in the best manner and as per your expectations.
Javascript has been one such domain where continuous developments have been happening ever since you can remember. Every day we hear about one or more new frameworks coming in, each claiming to better than its predecessor. There are numerous frameworks available in the market today, some of the most popular ones being ReactJS, VueJS, Angular.
However, the latest framework in the market that has got every developers attention is called SvelteJS. Svelte builds on the pre- existing knowledge of CSS, JavaScript and HTML as its building blocks to offer a better understanding to users.
Svelte serves like a launch-pad, a medium to get hands-on with concepts like declarative functions and different CSS types.
What makes SvelteJS stand out from other component-based JavaScript frameworks?
For those who are new to coding and wish to avoid going down the rabbit hole of hot reloads and components, Svelte is a simpler alternative. Unlike your usual frameworks having different files, Svelte compiles them all into one single file. Being a framework, it does not rely on a virtual DOM but the code that’s written updates the DOM as and when required based upon the changes in the apps state.
How does Svelte work?
The straightforward explanation of how Svelte works is: You take out the application or website you are building, render it using pure JS and it should be visible to your team.
How does Svelte stack up to its competition?
It is natural for a new Framework to be compared with those which have been around for a long time and have established a niche for themselves.
The most popular JS Frameworks are React, Angular, and Vue; but they are all based on the same concept of waiting for the code to load before building a virtual DOM. It is after this step that a page is ready to be rendered.
On the contrary, Svelte is more like a compiler. It compiles the code components into a JavaScript eliminating the need to rely on Virtual DOM and browser DOM. You can choose to write your component’s code using HTML, JavaScript or CSS, and Svelte will compile them into solo JavaScript modules. This process makes it easier to create and roll out applications at a faster pace than other Frameworks.
What’s more to know about Svelte?
Beginner Friendly
This is probably the biggest reason why Svelte has seen an exponential rise in popularity. Developers can directly access variables improving the creation process and experience multiple times. The Framework helps developers to learn basic methodologies about component states without confusing them.
Compatibility
Applications built on Svelte can be easily integrated with components built on Angular, React, or any other Framework. The cross framework compatibility offered by Svelte means that developers won’t have to recreate components in other frameworks.
Open Source
As are the benefits of any open-source software, Svelte is free and requires no investments. Svelte has its very own development environment on GitHub which allows you to seek help from professionals.
What is the future for SvelteJS?
Whether Svelte surpasses the credibility of React, Vue, and Angular is still a little too soon to answer.
Currently Svelte has not achieved the popularity as some of its counterparts, it lacks any big corporation backing it up, not to say that it is an essential requirement. A recent survey conducted has shown that there is a rise in the popularity of Svelte libraries among developers. This means that the future does look to be bright for Svelte but it is a long journey that this relatively newer platform has to partake.
The main USP for Svelte can be summarized as:
- No extra plugins needed because of its component-based framework.
- State management is easily handled.
- No editor extensions are required to add custom styling.
- It is an Open Source.
If you are seeking professional help to see if Svelte fits your requirements, then get in touch with us today at AVI Web Solutions and we’ll offer you a consultation and assistance in developing your project. Our team of experts will help decipher which technology is best suitable for your needs.
Sapper is a framework built on the foundation of Svelte. Sapper’s primary focus is to speed for rendering servers, preloading links and more. With the combination of Svelte & Sapper delivers websites that are fast and have a small footprint.
Sapper includes all the features of Svelte and builds on them, providing enhanced user experience. Though there is the possibility of adding these features to the Svelte application, using Sapper gets you all those features out of the box and ends up saving time and effort.
Why should you consider Sapper?
As is with everything there are quite a few reasons to use Sapper, we’ll list out a few of them below.
Page Routing
Navigation from one page to another is possible when “URLs” linked-to “pages” are described clearly in the mark-up.
Sapper offers the benefit of this to be done by the directory and file naming protocol. That offers an easier approach to understand than those requiring you to call the library function to configure page routing.
Page Layout
Page layouts eliminate the need to replicate certain columns that are common throughout the app. This ends up saving time in replicating certain parts of the code.
Server-Side Rendering (SSR)
SSR provides an exceptional user experience by loading the HTML for pages on the server rather than the browser. This user experience provided as a result of the page getting rendered before the JavaScript being downloaded.
Code Splitting
Code splitting offers the benefit of the JavaScript linked to a page, only to be download when visited. This is a favourable solution rather than downloading the entire application code when visiting the first page.
Pre-Fetching
By predicting the next page, a user will visit, pre-fetching offers faster page download. This is based on the mouse movements and hover, and can be configured on every page. When a user hovers over a certain page link, Sapper automatically starts to download the required JavaScript.
Offline Usability
Similar to React, Sapper uses a Service Worker to provide offline usability of web applications, of course in a limited sense. This is achieved by retrieving the cached versions of certain files when connectivity is lost.
Understanding how Sapper works
Just like Svelte applications, Sapper applications can be built using a template.
Sapper apps are handled by a server-based library known as “Polka”. Polka is more efficient in terms of download size and performance in comparison to Express. Sapper apps offer the choice of being modified to use express.
Sapper generates and stores the JavaScript & CSS files for each page individually in a directory, only to be called upon when that page is visited.
Using Sapper
Sapper not only offers the features described earlier but provides much more by default, eliminating the need for any additional libraries. Developers who’d alternately prefer page-routing by implementing a routing strategy can use Svelte, for all others Sapper has your back.
What’s the foreseeable future for Sapper?
Sapper is a young platform and has a lot to learn that said, it’s very intuitive and simple to use. Page-routing in Sapper is easy even for beginners, API creation is fairly simple, SSR implementation is straightforward, etc.
There is a lot to expect from such a platform in the future. To say the least, features implemented in Sapper are well put together and are valuable, but it is better to use them in Sapper, rather than trying to clone them in Svelte.
At AVI Web Solutions we aim to continuously innovate and create higher value for our clients by offering them the best and precise solution to their problems. We’ll help you achieve your end goal with our in-house technical expertise and ensure that the final delivery is at par with your expectations.
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