Developers have two choices when it comes to IDEs, Xamarin Studio or Visual Studio.
Xamarin Studio is a customized version of the MonoDevelop IDE, which can be used to develop Android, iOS, and OS X applications. Xamarin Studio is available on both OS X and Windows and has many advanced features as follows:
- Code completion
- Smart syntax highlighting
- Code navigation
- Code tooltips
- Integrated debugging for mobile apps running in emulators or on devices
- Source control integration with Git and subversion built-in
The following screenshot shows Xamarin Studio with the Android user interface designer opened:
Xamarin for Visual Studio is an add-in that supports the development of the Xamarin.Android apps. If you already have a license to Visual Studio and are comfortable with the environment, the add-in will likely be more appealing than Xamarin Studio because of the simplicity of adoption. The following screenshot shows Visual Studio 2012 with the Android user interface designer opened:
The following table summarizes some of the pros and cons of adopting each IDE:
The solution and project files created and updated by Xamarin Studio are compatible with Visual Studio, making it easy to switch between the two environments throughout the duration of a project. This also allows the team members to adopt the tool that they are most comfortable with or that runs on their platform of choice.