Mono for Android

Why Mono for Android?

A new column on developing Android apps with the .NET Framework debuts. Here's the reason it exists, and a bit about the authors.

• By Wallace McClure
• 04/25/2012

• Better Debugging With Mono

Welcome to this Web column on Mono for Android. With apologies to my distant cousin Troy, I'm Wally McClure. You may remember me from such books as "Professional Android Programming with Mono for Android and .NET/C#", and "Professional iPhone Programming with MonoTouch and .NET/C#."

Author Greg Shackles and I will be writing this monthly column on Mono for Android programming. Greg is the author of "Mobile Development with C#: Building iOS, Android, and Windows Phone Applications." In this column, we'll explore Mono for Android and how .NET, and C#, developers can take advantage of Android, the most popular smartphone platform. We're always interested in your thoughts, what your interests are, and how this column can help you be more productive. Please reach out to us. The best way to do that is the various Mono mailing lists hosted by Xamarin, on Twitter at @wbm and @gshackles, or any other place that Google can find us.

Now a little about me (and I am never one to shy away from talking about myself): I'm a redneck from Tennessee that somehow found his way to Atlanta and Georgia Tech. I was somehow lucky enough to graduate from there twice with a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering. I've always loved things that were new and different, which led to my love of writing software (I started in COBOL and x86 asm), digging into Micrsofot's Web technologies, jumping whole-hog into the .NET Framework 1.0 beta, following in love with mobile way back in 1999, and a whole host of things I probably shouldn't have done but did anyway. 

Somewhere along the way, I was contacted by someone representing a publisher that would eventually get purchased by John Wiley and Sons and folded into their Wrox division. Eight -- or is it nine? -- books later, I've run the gamut from software architecture, to scaling applications, ADO.NET, SQL Server, Oracle, Web, AJAX, the iPhone and Android. Unfortunately, I was kicked out of a 12-step program for recovering authors when I was caught with Microsoft Word open. I've worked for startups companies all the way up through U.S. Federal Government agencies. One thing I've learned is to trust what the marketplace wants and is buying: don't try to out-think the marketplace. This has led me to mobile, MonoTouch for the iPhone, Mono for Android, the books that I've written on them, and the applications I've created with them.

When not writing software, writing about software, or talking about software, I can be found playing golf, in the gym or coaching basketball.

Greg is a native New Yorker, and the more respectable one. He's originally from Long Island and now lives in Brooklyn. Greg has a B.S. in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics/Statistics, as well as a Master's degree in Computer Science from Stony Brook University. He's a Senior Software Engineer at OLO Online Ordering. Unfortunately Greg is a Yankee's fan, so my wife, the Red Sox fan, doesn't like him.