Charles Petzold

Six months ago I started doing some contracting work for the documentation team at Xamarin — the company that provides tools for developers to write Mac, iOS, and Android apps using C# and .NET. It was a good fit for me. The work experience was so enjoyable that when Xamarin offered me full-time employment, I jumped at the opportunity.

My job title is Programmer/Writer, and right now, my main job at Xamarin is to write a book about Xamarin.Forms — the new C# and XAML platform that lets you share user-interface code between iOS, Android, and Windows Phone applications. Here's the tentative cover:

More details can be found on the Xamarin blog entry "Xamarin Acquires Petzold". We expect the book to be published in the spring of 2015.

I'm also very excited to be going to Evolve, Xamarin's cross-platform mobile development event being held in Atlanta during the week of October 6 – 10, 2014. I'll be giving two talks at Evolve on Xamarin.Forms, and every attendee at Evolve will get a printed Preview Edition of Creating Mobile Apps with Xamarin.Forms. Of course I'll be available to autograph copies of the book or anything else.

Obviously after many years as a freelance writer (and sometimes consultant), this is a big change in my life. Recently, my old friend Jesse Liberty and I sat down (virtually speaking, of course) to chat about these changes for Jesse's Yet Another Podcast #128: The Legendary Charles Petzold. Jesse has been exploring Xamarin.Forms as well, and he'll also be speaking at Evolve.

Because most of my programming activities will now be for Xamarin, I don't expect this blog to have many programming-related entries in the future. Instead, I'm going to try to blog more about interesting books I've been reading (mostly science and math oriented, I suspect) and music. The DirectX Factor column I've been writing for MSDN Magazine will have its last installment in the October 2014 issue.

Otherwise, my day-to-day life hasn't really changed that much. I still work at home, and because I've kept normal work hours for years, I'm still at my desk roughly between 9 AM and 5 PM. Except now I'm actually part of a great team and a great company.

Oh — there's been a couple other changes: I now have a MacBook Pro on my desk and a Nexus 5 on a USB cable (and otherwise in my pocket) and an LG G Watch on my wrist that I'm eager to try coding for using Xamarin tools.