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So it's JS right? Where does it sit between PhoneGap/Cordova (Web pages wrapped in WebView) and Titanium Appcelerator (JS transcompiled(?) to native code).

My experience with Cordova.. it's slow at runtime, and you build the UI yourself using CSS (which gives the feeling, "Why am I building this by hand, while in native I can just drag?").

My experience with Appcelerator.. it's slow at compilation (imagine GWT), debugging is printlns, and you're at the mercy of whatever feature they provide (e.g. if the latest version of Android has new widget X, you can't use it until Appcelerator comes up with their version of X).

I still hope there's holy grail for code reuse / cross platform, but until then I'm forced to go native.

2 comments

Hi, AppGyver dev here. Our platform expands on the web view approach, allowing you to leverage existing web development experience when getting started.

Yeah, it's HTML and JS - but whereas Cordova provides you with one web view to build your app in, Steroids applications have multiple views joined together with native navigation. We ship with a lovely CSS framework by default to make building UIs a snap. The command line features livereload, so your changes can be reflected instantly on the device. And because it's Javascript, you can debug using the tools in Chrome and Safari - a vast improvement over printlns.

You might find this page illustrative: http://www.appgyver.com/supersonic/ui

Have you taken a look at Xamarin?

It uses C# and seems to compile to Native, I haven't delved too deep into it, but it seems like a solid choice.