Azure & DevOps Podcast: James Montemagno on the Xamarin Development Cycle

James Montemagno on the Xamarin Development Cycle - Episode 62

Nov 11, 2019

Joining Jeffrey Palermo today on the podcast is James Montemagno! James is quite prolific in the space and has tons of content out on the web! Currently, James is a Principal Program Manager for Client Developer Tools at Microsoft with a focus on mobile development with Xamarin. Prior to his role at Microsoft, he spent 3 years at Xamarin, 2 years doing mobile dev, and a year before that he worked as a Windows phone dev — that’s a total of 9 years in the mobile space! On top of his professional work, James also runs several podcasts, live streams on Twitch, and creates many tutorial videos on the topics of Xamarin and mobile DevOps.

In today’s episode, Jeffrey and James will be discussing the Xamarin development cycle. James describes the overall vision for what he (and Microsoft) wants to enable people to do with all of these various client devices, and then thoroughly explains what the chain will look like in today’s day and age for a multi-targeted Xamarin application on the mobile side from building it, to the automated test suites, to deploying it, to pre-production, and ultimately, to production and telemetry. At the end of the episode, James also cites many incredibly valuable resources to follow-up on to become even more familiar with Xamarin and mobile DevOps!

Topics of Discussion:

[:40] Be sure to visit AzureDevOps.Show for past episodes and show notes!

[:45] Jeffrey gives a few quick announcements.

[1:05] About today’s guest, James Montemagno!

[1:34] Jeffrey welcomes James to the show!

[4:03] James speaks about his career journey and how he ended up at Microsoft and specifically focusing on Xamarin and client developer tools.

[11:03] James describes the overall vision for what he (and Microsoft) wants to enable people to do with all of these various client devices.

[13:55] With having some background in game development, does that factor into James’ (and Microsoft’s) vision?

[15:51] On the mobile side, James walks us through what the chain will look like in today’s day and age for a multi-targeted Xamarin application from building it to the automated test suites to deploying it to pre-production and ultimately, to production and telemetry.

[23:50] A word from the Azure DevOps Podcast’s sponsor: Clear Measure.

[24:17] Jeffrey gives some more announcements and lets you know where to get a hold of his book, .NET DevOps for Azure.

[26:00] Can you build with one build configuration for multi-targeted, or, do you have to set up multiple pipelines for each target?

[27:25] After you get to the point where the build is running, how many artifacts is typical for multi-targeted? And what format?

[30:38] For those who have never done connected app center before, does James believe it to be fairly straight forward? Or are there particular steps you should be paying attention to?

[37:47] James recommends some valuable resources to follow-up on!

[44:15] Where James recommends you follow-up to hear more of him!

Mentioned in this Episode:

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

Microsoft Ignite 2019

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Pre-order on Amazon here!

bit.ly/dotnetdevopsebook — Click here to download the .NET DevOps for Azure ebook!

bit.ly/dotnetdevopsbookforcommunity — Visit to get your hands on two free books to give away at conferences or events!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Youtube

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

James’ Twitter: @JamesMontemagno