Foreword

I'll never forget coming down the escalator of the Xamarin Evolve 2014 venue in Atlanta. Two fantastical things happened. My brand new iPhone in a slim case slipped my grip and went tumbling end over end down the metal escalator steps. By the second bounce I'd given up any hope that it wasn't completely destroyed. As it reached the bottom I could see it bumping up against the end as the steps disappeared. To my complete amazement the gorilla glass was unblemished and the only sign of damage was a little nick in the bezel. As I celebrated wildly and repeatedly shouted "did you see that?!", I noticed a developer engaged in passionate conversation with a Xamarin employee. They were totally oblivious to my miracle. What could be so much more captivating? Then I heard it. "This Xamarin.Forms thing is amazing. So, could I build a game with it?! I have this game...." I shook my head. Who would think to do THAT with Xamarin.Forms? Who would think it would be a good idea?!

I heard variations of that same conversation many times over the following days, and in the years since. This is the lesson I continue to learn: when developers are inspired by what you do, they will dream bigger than you imagine. Xamarin continues to fuel dreams, and your dreams in turn propel Xamarin into the future. Today, as a now open source product, you are contributing amazing things to Xamarin.Forms, bringing it to WPF, Linux, IoT, and even the web. The web!

With so many opportunities and possibilities provided by Xamarin, it's easy to get lost searching for the "right" or "best practices" or just plain effective way to do anything. For this reason I'm ever grateful for books like this from Ed where he takes his practical experience building applications and helps us navigate this ever growing landscape of cross-platform development.

I'm in an enviable position now as a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft for Xamarin.Forms to witness many of the amazing applications being developed using Xamarin.Forms, and I'm truly inspired by what you're doing. Keep up the great work!

David Ortinau
Senior Program Manager, Xamarin.Forms
Microsoft