IPhone Development: Android SDK from an iPhone Developer's Perspective • Hacker News Board

Re: IPhone Development: Android SDK from an iPhone Developer's Perspective

#31

Post by redcap » Thu, Mar 04, 2010, 12:53 PM UTC

joecode wrote: post #25

It's like working with the evil offspring of GridBagLayout and XML That one had me laughing out loud. Ah.. Good ol' Java, I remember you. Anyway, as an iPhone dev looking to branch out into Android, I found this piece immensely useful, though I'm sure mileage may vary.

I really hate Java UI development so I'd love to know just how predominant having do deal with shit like GridBag is in Android.

The author puts the case that doing interfaces in iPhone is easier, does anyone else have anything to share on the matter?

Re: IPhone Development: Android SDK from an iPhone Developer's Perspective

#32

Post by joezydeco » Thu, Mar 04, 2010, 1:39 PM UTC

glhaynes wrote: post #20

joezydeco wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why hasn't IB gotten the same amount of improvements and attention as the rest of the toolchain? XCode has come a long way, as have the compilers and instruments.

Oh I don't disagree with you that IB can be annoying, and to a part-time Mac programmer like myself, not as intuitive as I wish. I only meant that the full-timers generally seem to like IB (warts and all), or, even if they don't like it, they still nearly universally use it instead of doing all their layout in code. The same scenario has repeated itself for many years: a newbie gets annoyed at IB and says "I'm just g…

I certainly wouldn't embark on a long-term OSX/iPhone project without mastering IB.

It's obvious that your UI is easier to modify and update using IB than hacking it in and out of the view controller code.

Back to the original thread, I do give a little credit to Android to having the option of UI editing done inside of Eclipse. It's not perfect, it's a little hacky, but the concept of slapping down a UI element like a button, naming it, and then having it automatically compile and show up in the editor autocomplete is a powerful thing. The first time it happened it honestly was a nice surprise.

Re: IPhone Development: Android SDK from an iPhone Developer's Perspective

#33

Post by theBobMcCormick » Thu, Mar 04, 2010, 3:31 PM UTC

warfangle wrote: post #29

theBobMcCormick wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only alternatives I've seen that look like they might be potentially production ready are PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium. (both use JavaScript). If you've found others I'd love hear about it. I like the Android framework a lot but I too am not a big fan of Java.

As Scala compiles down to JVM bytecode, it's available for Android development: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-ecli...

Interesting! Thanks for the link! I'm gonna put that in my "must read more about" list!

Re: IPhone Development: Android SDK from an iPhone Developer's Perspective

#34

Post by theBobMcCormick » Thu, Mar 04, 2010, 3:35 PM UTC

starnix17 wrote: post #24

Heads up, if you're looking to try Android development on OS X, once you learn the basics drop Eclipse and just use this TextMate bundle: http://www.onebitwonder.com/projects/android The only good thing about Eclipse (IMO) is the in-line error handling, otherwise it's just overly bloated, slow, and clunky.

That is one of the nice things about Android development. You dont' need to use Eclipse. I've done all my Android development so far with Emacs.