Xamarin Universal Library

Post

About the topic:

community, resources, xamarin

Luis Matos

All together let’s create the Xamarin Universal Library. A library where we can find pages of interest, jobs, postcasts, images, videos, among other resources of the Xamarin universe. The idea is that everyone contributes their grain of sand to have a suitable place for both the newest and the most expert.

Many times we ignore all the resources we can have available because we don’t have the knowledge that they exist. Here I explain where this idea came from and how we can achieve this goal.

So, let’s start …

It’s true that the popularity of Xamarin is growing day by day. Even within companies. Many companies are opting for a Xamarin mobile development team.

It’s normal for many developers from other areas to want to participate in this growth. There are many options where you can start learning Xamarin. But the truth is that many good resources are unknown to many of us. More if you are starting to learn.

Many times I’ve been asked to help recommend one course or another. But the truth is that although I know some, I’m not aware of many. When I started with Xamarin there were not as many options as now, my learning was a little hard. This would be my example, maybe it doesn’t apply to you, and you do know good courses. But, what if the person who is looking for that information doesn’t have a person to ask? We would be in the same situation.

Not only for beginners

In the same way, it can happen with an experienced person. A while ago I was looking for Xamarin Wallpapers for my mobile. Guess what? I didn’t find any. There’s just nothing. As I have a small designer vein, I made some that you can see in my github repository. These I shared in some Xamarin communities. And, guess what? They were loved.

Like me, many people wanted to have wallpapers on their phones to feel more identified with the brand. These wallpapers may be the best you’ve seen in your life (or the only ones lol), but guess what? Maybe you who are reading this post don’t know them. This happens simply because there is no specific place to look for these wallpapers.

The same can happen with other things like a job, for example. Maybe I live in a city, and I want to move to another city because I want a change. In the same way I will have to work. Maybe I need to know what companies work with Xamarin for me to send my resume. Or maybe I just need to know where I can request a remote job.

From the community to the community

There are many options that we can deduce similar to the previous ones. This made me think that there was a need to build a knowledge base. One fed by us to help ourselves.

Maybe today I don’t need anything, but I don’t know tomorrow. Creating this library supposes a great internal growth in the community from my point of view. Individually we will not see many changes, but together we can change many things. This is only the beginning.

Where did the idea come from?

After the idea of providing a global tool to the whole community, create a group of developers who wanted to learn Xamarin to develop a Xamarin digital magazine for community. This would get the information from Planet Xamarin, which is a global RSS feeds from Xamarin developers around the world.

Unfortunately, Planet Xamarin has no API and although we made the request it was rejected. They told us that Planet Xamarin already fulfilled its purpose and that they didn’t see any added value in creating the API that we requested.

The truth I understand perfectly. And that’s where Xamarin Universe was born. A community for all communities. This is where limitations make you stronger.

This is my desire, to unite all the communities into one. For this, I created a group on Facebook called Xamarin Universe. This only has a few members now because it’s so new.

Xamarin Universal Library

The idea is that we can have a library we can get information about everything about Xamarin. To achieve this task I have created a repository where you will find the base model of the library.

In the library you will see topics such as the following:

Jobs (Remote and local)
Social networks (Facebook groups, YouTube channels, Telegram chat, etc.)
Online courses (Payments and free)
Programs and podcast
Resources of interest
Among other things…

Don’t be surprised if you see that now it doesn’t have much content. The idea is that everyone can make their contributions and that we create the largest Xamarin Universal Library in the community. Over time this can become a very important resource.

How to achieve the goal?

The Xamarin Universal Library isn’t something that we can achieve individually. If you know any person, team, community, company or any other entity, share this post with them. Share the repository link so they can contribute and support this movement.

Invite others to share, and follow the voice. Simply with that you are contributing your grain of sand. Let’s make this reach all Xamarin communities. Let’s make a difference Let’s be one.

Xamarin Universe

On the other hand, I recently published some articles with the theme: Is Xamarin the best solution for mobile development for you? This post, divided in two, had very good acceptance in several communities.

Then, it happens that in the description of my profile the facebook group Xamarin Universe is mentioned.

Several people made the request to join the community. But several also wrote to me privately to tell me that although they wanted to belong to the community they did not understand the published content. This was in Spanish because the first members are from the Dominican Republic.

Knowing the limitations there are in that sense create a new community called the Universo Xamarin. With the same theme but for the Spanish speaking community.

It is for this reason that the Xamarin Universe group has no content. This was removed to be able to start over with the general language, English. Perhaps the first publication you see is about the Xamarin Unviersal Library, for the newest ones.

In the same way I have recently created the corresponding groups for Telegram. Everyone is welcome to join, share, learn, support and continue to grow in this community.

Notes:

Xamarin Universal Library (repository)

To make any suggestion or update out of the ordinary, please open a thread in the repository. You woulb be detailed and we analyze what you propose.

Wallpapers

If you want more wallpapers, let me know in the comment box. I have some very cool that I have not shared. In the same way, if you want to upload them to a platform so that they go out in the Google search, they let me know.