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Android Studio 3.2

android-developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Android Studio 3.2

#61

Post by lokedhs »

jrs95 wrote: post #58
russellbeattie wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gradle is pure insanity. Take a JVM-based scripting language that no one uses, and base an entire build-tool around it - complete with a custom DSL - that is so slow it needs to be run in the background as a service to be even somewhat performant, and make sure that each new version somehow breaks older build scripts so that you're constantly being prompted to update, and then being prompted to fix whatever the updat…

Maven is very unintuitive though, at least Gradle does a better job on the CLI interface. Hopefully we'll get better options on the JVM in the future.

But you need to edit the Gradle configuration files. Most people simply cargo-cult that, and while that works most of the time, it's incredibly non-intuitive to solve problems.

Re: Android Studio 3.2

#62

Post by pjmlp »

supernovae wrote: post #13
TekMol wrote: post #6

I try Android Studio for a bit every now and then. I have to say it's such a giant bloated thing that it really does not make me want to write native code. Fortunately, there is a lot of great stuff going on with Progressive Web Apps now. I hope that they will be the future. Developing for the browser is so much leaner.

Yay for PWA! Please, if you're developing PWA's be sure to share them on all the marketplaces! Hardware/OS freedom would be amazing!

PWAs are the only way I can see mobile Web actually being comparable to native, specially when being able to use native APIs like on Windows and ChromeOS (eventually Android as well).

Re: Android Studio 3.2

#63

Post by pjmlp »

p1necone wrote: post #49
specializeded wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a hypothetical user who doesn’t post on niche tech forums, I totally prefer a native app over a web app It’s pretty It’s fast It’s not stuttery-stoppy I can swipe back and forth between pages without waiting 4 seconds for everything to display, and then inevitably move around right before I fucking tap It’s on the app store I can use it instantly. I can remove it instantly. I don’t know what sandboxing is I don’t…

I prefer native apps over web apps , but for most things I vastly prefer a website to both of those. I shouldn't have to install an app for every single thing I want to use, especially if I only use the thing once a week or so.

That is what instant apps are for.

Re: Android Studio 3.2

#64

Post by pjmlp »

balladeer wrote: post #56
TekMol wrote: post #6

I try Android Studio for a bit every now and then. I have to say it's such a giant bloated thing that it really does not make me want to write native code. Fortunately, there is a lot of great stuff going on with Progressive Web Apps now. I hope that they will be the future. Developing for the browser is so much leaner.

I am talking strictly about Android Studio and not the end results i.e. the apps. Giant? It's smaller than Xcode you know :) Bloated? Yes, so bloated! As an Android developer this is my biggest complaint from the ecosystem after the fragmentation though Google is trying to fix that with Treble but they are just not enough for the Studio. It was amazingly frustrating and pathetic to work with it couple of years back a…

The typical Android development update cycle.

- Stable releases of Android Studio are usually followed by complaints of breaking left and right even though they take mounths to get out

- Stable releases of Android Support Library usually always have a couple of regressions

- Documentation and release notes always gets made available a couple of hours later

- Kotlin plugin usually breaks at every release

- NDK gets the attention level of a 20% project

Re: Android Studio 3.2

#65

Post by pjmlp »

Jaruzel wrote: post #59
foobaw wrote: post #5

Do the emulator and compiler still require SSDs and 16GB+ RAM to be usable? I love Android Studio but it used to always feel very heavy-weight.

16Gb, Standard HDD, Mid range i5 processor. It's sluggish as hell. Takes an age to start up, the gui is slow, and compiling even a basic app taks forever, with much disk thrashing. I've given up, and recently uninstalled it. I'm going to try and develop android apps using Xamarin in Visual Studio instead (as I have that anyway for Windows dev).

I am on the same path, even though it makes me feel a bit like hypocrite given my advocacy for native tooling vs third party, it actually does seem a better path to sanity.

Either that or just live with mobile Web and its constraints.

Re: Android Studio 3.2

#66

Post by calferreira »

In my opinion this a very exciting release. Google is really pushing to make the platform better for everyone, users and developers.

Android App Bundles, Integration with Hyper-V and support for AMD are very welcome.

Just wish using Android Studio required less ram and CPU, but to be honest, IIRC developing with Java has always been a little demanding when it comes to machine resources.

Re: Android Studio 3.2

#67

Post by calferreira »

TekMol wrote: post #6

I try Android Studio for a bit every now and then. I have to say it's such a giant bloated thing that it really does not make me want to write native code. Fortunately, there is a lot of great stuff going on with Progressive Web Apps now. I hope that they will be the future. Developing for the browser is so much leaner.

Although PWA are welcome, it doesn't solve every single issue. I believe there's space for both.

Re: Android Studio 3.2

#68

Post by vorg »

jrs95 wrote: post #58
russellbeattie wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gradle is pure insanity. Take a JVM-based scripting language that no one uses, and base an entire build-tool around it - complete with a custom DSL - that is so slow it needs to be run in the background as a service to be even somewhat performant, and make sure that each new version somehow breaks older build scripts so that you're constantly being prompted to update, and then being prompted to fix whatever the updat…

Maven is very unintuitive though, at least Gradle does a better job on the CLI interface. Hopefully we'll get better options on the JVM in the future.

You can use Kotlin instead of Apache Groovy as the build language for Gradle, but virtually no-one uses it there.

Re: Android Studio 3.2

#69

Post by vorg »

lokedhs wrote: post #48

I have used IntelliJ IDEA since the early 2000's and used it for Android development since Android first came out. It used to be an amazing experience, and when the news came out that Google was going to switch to IDEA for their official tools instead of going with that Eclipse I was thrilled. Finally everybody was going to able to know just how fast and efficient Android development can be. How wrong I was. When And…

You might need to wait for Flutter to mature. I presume they'll use a custom build tool instead of Gradle, and Dart as their build language instead of Apache Groovy.

Re: Android Studio 3.2

#70

Post by Alexendoo »

calferreira wrote: post #66

In my opinion this a very exciting release. Google is really pushing to make the platform better for everyone, users and developers. Android App Bundles, Integration with Hyper-V and support for AMD are very welcome. Just wish using Android Studio required less ram and CPU, but to be honest, IIRC developing with Java has always been a little demanding when it comes to machine resources.

There is quite a large downside to app bundles, that is that it requires you (the developer) to hand over your app signing key to Google. The fact that updates from the play store are signed end to end is pretty great in my opinion, this doesn't apply so much if you give away your signing key.

As far as I can tell it's not a technical reason why they ask for your key - bundletool [1] supports generating a set of signed APKs (.apks, APK set archive) in the same way the play store would from an app bundle. Android Studio's GUI could just as easily generate that to upload directly to the play store instead of an app bundle. This would net the same benefits to the end users and the same level of convenience to the developer, all whilst keeping your private keys private.

[1] https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/bundletool

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