title: Xamarin - Using Portable Class Libraries a mandatory way to go?
body: <p>Recently I am requested to setup the design for a new app, which needs to be build using Xamarin. The team already created a DEMO app for Android, iOS and Windows Phone. So basically this demo version needs to be transformed/refactored into a proper maintainable product. </p>
  
  <p>When looking into the code what currently is implemented in the DEMO app, I found out that some third party libraries are used which are not available as PCL. This means that I cannot build up my app using PCL's unless I can port this third party library into a PCL.</p>
  
  <p><strong>My findings are:</strong></p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>The functionality we use from this third party library works fine on all 3 platforms</li>
  <li>I cannot find any <strong>blocking</strong> reason why I <strong>should not</strong> use normal Class Libraries</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p><strong>Questions:</strong></p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Are there any <strong>blocking</strong> reasons why I cannot make use of normal Class Libraries?</li>
  <li>Will the public apps stores accept these apps or is this not an issue at all?</li>
  <li>If not.. Can you give recommendations where especially take care of going with normal Class Library's</li>
  <li>If there are.. How can I port third party Libraries to PCL or is there any other way to work around?</li>
  </ul>