I'm not a mobile app developer by profession. But I always wanted to start learning and developing real world apps. The problem I always ran into the tutorials and demos, that they are mostly limited(i.e not close to solving real world problems). I think browsing their code, will give me a good start. And I would know how it's done right! Thank You!
Open sourcing our Android and iOS apps
41–50 of 74 posts
Re: Open sourcing our Android and iOS apps
#42What's the purpose of Android's ApplicationGraph interface? https://github.com/kickstarter/android-oss/blob/888a37468358...
Looks like they're using Dagger2 (https://google.github.io/dagger/) for dependency injection.
Re: Open sourcing our Android and iOS apps
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But I am specifically talking about companies with closed source apps and services open sourcing them Ah, I see. I misunderstood. Yes, I think we are in agreement then, although I have my doubts most companies want their "secret sauce" or code-indiscretions flapping in the wild.
I think it depends. The exact PageRank algorithm, or the process that Uber uses to route drivers: probably not. The UI to any of that: why not? I think there is very little secret sauce out there and most of the stuff is just bog standard code that would do no harm being in the open.
Couldn't agree more.
I think the largest hurdle for getting more stuff open sourced is two-fold.
1) A large amount of software is sub-par, and likely commits many atrocities including having business logic in the UI.
2) Companies are afraid they'll be embarrassed by their code, and would rather not take the risk of being branded as a company that doesn't do things right.
For number 1, there are potential solutions by hiring better engineers etc... but number 2 is always a (perceived) risk, even if their codebase is "perfect".
Re: Open sourcing our Android and iOS apps
#44They use Swift Playgrounds to do a lot of development: "Swift Playgrounds for iterative development and styling. Most major screens in the app get a corresponding playground where we can see a wide variety of devices, languages, and data in real time." https://github.com/kickstarter/ios-oss/tree/master/Kickstart... I've recently bought into this development method too. It's not quite what Bret Victor dreamed up, but…
Is this similar to Xamarin Workbooks?
https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/workbook...
Re: Open sourcing our Android and iOS apps
#45Open sourcing a client is pretty useless when the bulk of the logic happens inside a company's server somewhere.
Re: Open sourcing our Android and iOS apps
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are quite a few "sample" open source projects that demonstrate best practices and various Android architectures. However, they are not fully fledged production applications like the Kickstarter app.
That's the entire issue, I've seen quite a lot of "sample" apps that do one thing (like nav bar, or fragments, or animations etc.) But each of htem brings their own libraries, and don't explain what what's necessary and it's left to the user ot decide to how stitch all of this together. Don't get me wrong...I'm happy for the demo apps (they had made my life a lot easier), but a production grade app is a whole differe…
F-Droid is full of "real" apps that are completely open source. You can look at any of them to see how they work.
Re: Open sourcing our Android and iOS apps
#47Kudos to them. Compared to the web it's rather cumbersome to poke into packaged and released mobile apps, so I really appreciate access to the source of a real world app for learning and comparison. The Android codebase looks very modern and well structured. I think it makes great use of many of the goodies (gradle, rxjava, retrofit, dagger, android support lib, ...) and learnings (bring your own MV*; use Fragments w…
I'm actually surprised they're relying on Activities for the views in the app. I'm not familiar with how the app works, but this is typically an out-dated approach. Activities should really only be treated as entry points into your app.
Also, not a huge deal for an app, but the package structure is organized by layers, not features. Makes Java's non-private access modifiers essentially useless.
The general style of the source code is solid though. I wouldn't be upset if I had to work in this code base on a daily basis.
Re: Open sourcing our Android and iOS apps
#48Kudos to them. Compared to the web it's rather cumbersome to poke into packaged and released mobile apps, so I really appreciate access to the source of a real world app for learning and comparison. The Android codebase looks very modern and well structured. I think it makes great use of many of the goodies (gradle, rxjava, retrofit, dagger, android support lib, ...) and learnings (bring your own MV*; use Fragments w…
I'm actually surprised they're relying on Activities for the views in the app. I'm not familiar with how the app works, but this is typically an out-dated approach. Activities should really only be treated as entry points into your app. Also, not a huge deal for an app, but the package structure is organized by layers, not features. Makes Java's non-private access modifiers essentially useless. The general style of t…
Just curious, why should activities only be treated as entry points to the app? What are the downsides of the only-use-fragments-if-you-need-to approach?
Re: Open sourcing our Android and iOS apps
#49I'm not a mobile app developer by profession. But I always wanted to start learning and developing real world apps. The problem I always ran into the tutorials and demos, that they are mostly limited(i.e not close to solving real world problems). I think browsing their code, will give me a good start. And I would know how it's done right! Thank You!
I have the same problem. If anybody has any good resources, please let me know.
Re: Open sourcing our Android and iOS apps
#50Kudos to them. Compared to the web it's rather cumbersome to poke into packaged and released mobile apps, so I really appreciate access to the source of a real world app for learning and comparison. The Android codebase looks very modern and well structured. I think it makes great use of many of the goodies (gradle, rxjava, retrofit, dagger, android support lib, ...) and learnings (bring your own MV*; use Fragments w…
I'm actually surprised they're relying on Activities for the views in the app. I'm not familiar with how the app works, but this is typically an out-dated approach. Activities should really only be treated as entry points into your app. Also, not a huge deal for an app, but the package structure is organized by layers, not features. Makes Java's non-private access modifiers essentially useless. The general style of t…
I disagree with you regarding Activities. For apps they do most of the screen management the developer needs just fine, especially if they are backed by a strong view and data model.
If you download the App you can actually really quickly make out where they leverage the single Fragment (switch the project category via the drawer) and it makes sense there; but I think the same App build with a single Activity and Fragments would be much messier (especially regarding animations and back-navigation) and they'd gain (next to) nothing.