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An iOS Developer Takes on Android

nfarina.com

61–70 of 119 posts

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#61
This is a great and honest article and has changed the way I think about Apple users/developers.

Before that, I considered Apple users to be a group of gay douchebags, but today I have learned that there is at least a sane person on the other riverside.

(I have neither developed for any smartphone nor do I possess one, so no need for "Stupid FANDROID!1!")

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#62

Seems like a very balanced article to me. The comments about Eclipse made me laugh (I just had to start using Eclipse for a different reason and hate it with the heat of a thousand suns).

Using Eclipse gets better as you get more comfortable with its peculiarities. I think the author did a good job of summing up the Eclipse experience--there's a lot to hate, and a lot to like. After using Eclipse for several years, it still has that "designed by committee" feel, but I do find myself missing some of its features when I'm using other environments.

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#63
post #6
post #5

Interestingly (but inevitably) as a java developer who first learned Android and then moved to iOS, the sticking points he mentions are exactly the same ones I found, but the other way around. I think Eclipse makes sense if you think like a java coder, Xcode not so much, and Objective-C will fry your mind... That said, Eclipse and the Android SDK is a pain to install even if you are a java wizard.

Why would ObjC fry anybodie's mind? I am that weird to like it (coming from web dev background: PHP, Ruby, JavaSript)?

I might be biased as well since I learned smalltalk+ruby about the same time prior to objective c. I personally find smalltalk derived OO much less painful than the java/c++ counterparts. But thats just my opinion, they both get the job done in the end.

I'm curious how it fries your mind exactly? Fries like Haskell in that it makes you learn different paradigms or fries as in challenges base assumptions on how things like OO/etc... work?

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#64
post #61

This is a great and honest article and has changed the way I think about Apple users/developers. Before that, I considered Apple users to be a group of gay douchebags, but today I have learned that there is at least a sane person on the other riverside. (I have neither developed for any smartphone nor do I possess one, so no need for "Stupid FANDROID!1!")

Us gays also use Android, y'know ;)

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#65
post #31

Why do you "have to kiss that silky smooth scrolling goodbye" if you setup your UITableViewCells in Interface Builder? I've used it for all of my apps and the scrolling is just as fast as any of Apple's native apps. Interface Builder just packages up all that initial layout code and then it is executed when the nib when it is unpackaged. After that there is no difference.

Actually there is a difference. If you create a table with a considerable number of cells (say, over 20) that contain a couple of labels and maybe an image when you swipe really fast the scrolling will hang, even if you are using the dequeue mechanism. The alternative is to paint the contents of the cell manually (that is without using UILabels and the such) using CoreGraphics. Check out the drawContentView: method h…

If you had twenty different UITableViewCells in a nib that had twenty different pictures then I admit the loading of these cells will cause the scrolling to stutter if you do it in cellForRowAtIndexPath:.

However I just finished an application with a UITableViewCell, defined in a nib, that had 3 labels and a image. The labels depend on the data that the row was displaying and the image was the same in every row (it was a custom disclosure image).

One of the table views that that used this cell had 100 rows and it loaded and scrolled without a hitch.

Most of the slowdowns people experience with scrolling is if they have transparent cells and/or they don't load lazy load images on a background thread.

I agree that if you've tried all sorts of optimizations and you are still experiencing slow scrolling then painting the contents manually will probably be faster but it is IMO more work then 99% of people need to do and, like naz said below, there can be accessibility issues.

When Loren Brichter wrote that 3 years ago it was a much bigger deal. The iPhone 3G was extremely underpowered compared to most of the devices people run iOS on today.

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#67
Wow. I never expected that much negativity for the Android side. I've dabbled in both but haven't done Android since over a year ago. I was (and still am) really looking forward to using Eclipse and reading Java. I just get very tired of XCode.

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#68
post #6
post #5

Interestingly (but inevitably) as a java developer who first learned Android and then moved to iOS, the sticking points he mentions are exactly the same ones I found, but the other way around. I think Eclipse makes sense if you think like a java coder, Xcode not so much, and Objective-C will fry your mind... That said, Eclipse and the Android SDK is a pain to install even if you are a java wizard.

Why would ObjC fry anybodie's mind? I am that weird to like it (coming from web dev background: PHP, Ruby, JavaSript)?

ObjC's main "frying" factor is that it uses a different (and to my mind, superior) set of object-oriented patterns as primary abstractions. For example, subclassing is much less common in ObjC than in Java, preferring to use the less complex delegation pattern as opposed to subclass-and-implement patterns for behavior extensions.

Another problem some people have is that ObjC brings to the table all the pain of C. You've got memory management and bounds checking and unsafe casts all dumped into your lap. It can be pretty painful if you're not experienced in C, C++, or ASM programming.

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#69
post #25

What a wonderful approach to development. Skip the ideological critiquing and start shipping some awesome products.. I guess that is really what separates the great developer from the good developer.

Agreed, the attitude is refreshing. Nice quote: Java is a high level programming language. It’s unproductive to have an opinion about it.

Depends -- with that attitude we would still have assembler.

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#70
post #25

What a wonderful approach to development. Skip the ideological critiquing and start shipping some awesome products.. I guess that is really what separates the great developer from the good developer.

Agreed, the attitude is refreshing. Nice quote: Java is a high level programming language. It’s unproductive to have an opinion about it.

It is fine to have an opinion. It's even productive in some cases (if you toolchain up scala to the android, for example).

What's unproductive is to decide to avoid the biggest-by-number-of-units mobile platform because of Java.

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