An iOS Developer Takes on Android • Hacker News Board

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#101

Post by gary4gar » Tue, Aug 02, 2011, 12:30 AM UTC

FaceKicker wrote: post #85

qeorge wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I jumped into Android development about a month ago, and after a slow start its really been fun. I hated Eclipse at first, but it gets a lot better with time. The emulator though - don't bother. The author is not exaggerating about several minutes to load. Just buy an Android phone and debug on that, or you'll spend more time cursing at the emulator than coding.

I've found that booting the emulator does take a minute or two (I don't know about "several", but that's besides the point), but you don't have to restart every time you make a change or anything. It's just a once-per-session thing unless you accidentally close it.

Still, you will have to wait for around 30s for each refresh; While the new binary gets uploaded

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#102

Post by Becca365 » Tue, Aug 02, 2011, 12:45 AM UTC

I just paid $22.87 for an iPad2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $675 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, GrabCent. çom

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#103

Post by fashio » Tue, Aug 02, 2011, 3:10 AM UTC

nickheer wrote: post #94

tomjen3 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just start the emulator op in the morning. There is no reason to shot it down when you go back to coding.

I was going to ask whether there was a problem with your 'u' key, but you used it in "you". I'm confused.

You are confused?

LOL. Kids.

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#104

Post by raminf » Tue, Aug 02, 2011, 4:26 AM UTC

Nice overview. I have to disagree with the assessment of Eclipse though. Under one app you can build and debug Java, Python, Ruby, HTML, Javascript, and Air apps. Once you get used to the workflow, it's incredibly productive.

As for the emulator, unless you want to invest in a large set of devices, it's the only way to test against different screen sizes and device profiles. Even though it's nice to have a device for debugging, you'll need to make peace with the emulator to make sure your app doesn't go all wonky on devices other than your exact model.

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#105

Post by sjwright » Tue, Aug 02, 2011, 5:25 AM UTC

div wrote: post #50

ThomPete wrote: post #17

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.

Could not agree more. There have been quite a few articles before that just cast Android in a more negative light then it deserves. I develop both iOS and Android apps and this article is the first one I wholeheartedly agree with. Both platforms are obviously going to have some gloss and some warts, but in the end comparing the two in a zero-sum fashion is like arguing vanilla is better than chocolate.

> like arguing vanilla is better than chocolate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_up32HZ1H4

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#106

Post by tomjen3 » Tue, Aug 02, 2011, 5:37 AM UTC

to3m wrote: post #86

tomjen3 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's a fair point, but if your goal is to create something that people will pay for, targeting a popular platform with an infrastructure based around Java, what will having an opinion about Java buy you? Very little. You can like it, or you can not like it, but you'll have to use it anyway, so your time would be better spent thinking about something other than how much you like it or (as is probably more likely...)…

Not really. The jruby guys have made a language very close to ruby that doesn't use any libraries, if you can live with them, there is Scala, also jryby, etc.

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#107

Post by zmalltalker » Tue, Aug 02, 2011, 6:41 AM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #82

If you're starting Android development, just save yourself the pain and just use the IntelliJ IDEA community edition. The Android plugin included doesn't have fancy UI stuff, like for designing interfaces or visually editing the XML configuration files, but it does have code-completion of XML tags and properties and it works better as a code editor, being less painful.

I've tried doing that, but whenever I'm actually doing work on Android app a really large percentage of my time spent is done working on the UI. Not having the ADT tools for the UI just doesn't make sense to me.

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#108

Post by ThomPete » Tue, Aug 02, 2011, 7:04 AM UTC

Volpe wrote: post #97

to3m wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point, but if your goal is to create something that people will pay for, targeting a popular platform with an infrastructure based around Java, what will having an opinion about Java buy you? Very little. You can like it, or you can not like it, but you'll have to use it anyway, so your time would be better spent thinking about something other than how much you like it or (as is probably more likely...)…

I don't think that's true. - Python - Ruby - Ruby on Rails - Django - Coffeescript - Node.js Were all results of people challenging the status quo of language/platform capability. Developing new languages/frameworks/platforms is NOT unproductive, and has proved very successful in the past. While java may not be a good excuse to avoid android, it's certainly a good excuse to improve upon the stack (as another commente…

I think you and several others are missing the point here.

Most people who complain about a language don't do anything about it.

It was those I addressed, not those who do.

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#109

Post by FaceKicker » Tue, Aug 02, 2011, 8:11 AM UTC

gary4gar wrote: post #101

FaceKicker wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that booting the emulator does take a minute or two (I don't know about "several", but that's besides the point), but you don't have to restart every time you make a change or anything. It's just a once-per-session thing unless you accidentally close it.

Still, you will have to wait for around 30s for each refresh; While the new binary gets uploaded

My experience has been that it takes much less time than that, probably somewhere in the area of 5-15 seconds. I've only worked on tiny personal projects though; maybe this varies a lot based on project size.

Re: An iOS Developer Takes on Android

#110

Post by FaceKicker » Tue, Aug 02, 2011, 8:13 AM UTC

gary4gar wrote: post #101

FaceKicker wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that booting the emulator does take a minute or two (I don't know about "several", but that's besides the point), but you don't have to restart every time you make a change or anything. It's just a once-per-session thing unless you accidentally close it.

Still, you will have to wait for around 30s for each refresh; While the new binary gets uploaded

My experience has been that it takes much less time than that, probably somewhere in the area of 5-15 seconds. I've only worked on tiny personal projects though; maybe this varies with project size a lot.