title: Xamarin and Visual Studio: What are the Differences?
body: <p>I'm about to start learning C# using the Head First C# book from O' Reilly. It seems to be a pretty amazing book, however there's a slight problem - I don't have Windows. I found this cool looking IDE Xamarin that I thought would make a good substitute for Visual Studio, however I just want to make sure it won't be a total waste of time to download and install it. Or would either running VS on a Virtual Machine be a better option or on Bootcamp. However with Bootcamp the problem would be my lack of hard disk storage - I own a Mac Air and there's barely 40GB left.</p>
  
  <p>So what are the similarities and differences between the two IDEs. Would it make learning C# using Head First difficult?
  Also the reason why I'm not just downloading Xamarin and trying stuff out for myself is because my Internet speed is currently terrible (barely 0.5 megabits per second D:) and I'm too impatient to wait so long :P Plus it would be better if I knew before hand how Xamarin will affect the development of any apps I make.</p>