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Why is Android Development so difficult/complex? (compared to Web and Desktop)

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Re: Why is Android Development so difficult/complex? (compared to Web and Desktop)

#21

Post by jaybeavers »

aristofun wrote: post #6

Only 2 equally contributing reasons: 1. UI is inherently a very complex problem, because of the state. Most of the so called web apps are thin clients with most of the state machine delegated and spread over backend services. 2. Android platform was shitty designed to begin with. Terrible architecture, ugly UX, frustrating docs etc.

Strongly disagree. As a dev who’s been in the business since the days of the first gui apps and OSes, UI can be very straightforward, but we have designed modern systems such that they are immensely complex.

Styles and inheritance and asynchronicity have turned what could be a simple approach into an inscrutable problem.

Re: Why is Android Development so difficult/complex? (compared to Web and Desktop)

#22

Post by frfl »

songbird23 wrote: post #15
joe_fishfish wrote: post #13

Couldn’t agree less. I’ve been a developer for nearly 20 years, working with Python, PHP, JavaScript, ObjC, Swift, Java, bash scripting, SQL, Terraform, and a bunch of others. Written code for data transformations, web servers, client side JS apps, native mobile apps, and games. Android has been my favourite platform to work with and has offered the best developer experience I’ve found. It’s not particularly close. T…

can it do vim shortcuts? its soo hard without vim

Intellij, which Android IDE is base on, as well as other Jetbrains' editors I'm assuming, all support a Vim plugin. https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/using-product-as-the-vim...

It was decent enough when I used an Jetbrains editors a few years back, at least for 80-90% of normal/insert mode vanilla vim editing behavior.

Re: Why is Android Development so difficult/complex? (compared to Web and Desktop)

#23

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

eloisant wrote: post #8
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #5

I wonder if this is also one of the reasons why Android apps are usually worse than their ios counterparts.

iOS development is honestly the worse. It got a bit better with Swift instead of ObjectiveC but you still have to deal with XCode and a stupid process to sign and publish your apps.

The signing process might be whacky but the actual swift and swift ui is quite pleasant to use.

Re: Why is Android Development so difficult/complex? (compared to Web and Desktop)

#24

Post by wonger_ »

remram wrote: post #9

I wrote apps for Android when I first got a smartphone, circa 2011, and it was so easy. There was a bit of doc to read to understand activities and intents but that was basically it. At that point you could write an app without running into new surprises. I tried again to write a tiny Android app last year and couldn't figure it out. There's so many moving parts with SDKs, API levels, support libraries, contexts, fra…

I'm sure some web-to-native workflows are documented just by popular demand. Like this React Native + Expo review posted recently: https://expo.dev/blog/from-web-to-native-with-react-native-a...

But for an absolutely minimal native example, I followed this guide: https://czak.pl/2016/01/13/minimal-android-project.html with a few adjustments and got an app to compile.

Re: Why is Android Development so difficult/complex? (compared to Web and Desktop)

#25

Post by aristofun »

jaybeavers wrote: post #21
aristofun wrote: post #6

Only 2 equally contributing reasons: 1. UI is inherently a very complex problem, because of the state. Most of the so called web apps are thin clients with most of the state machine delegated and spread over backend services. 2. Android platform was shitty designed to begin with. Terrible architecture, ugly UX, frustrating docs etc.

Strongly disagree. As a dev who’s been in the business since the days of the first gui apps and OSes, UI can be very straightforward, but we have designed modern systems such that they are immensely complex. Styles and inheritance and asynchronicity have turned what could be a simple approach into an inscrutable problem.

Aren’t you one of developers of android?

That would explain a lot :)

Very dangerous wishful thinking.

Ui can only be as straightforward as a user wants it to be - if all user wants is pressing couple buttons to open couple windows - then yes, it is straightforward.

Asynchronicity is not a problem it is one of the many solutions to help alleviate the problem.

Re: Why is Android Development so difficult/complex? (compared to Web and Desktop)

#26

Post by ranger_danger »

remram wrote: post #9

I wrote apps for Android when I first got a smartphone, circa 2011, and it was so easy. There was a bit of doc to read to understand activities and intents but that was basically it. At that point you could write an app without running into new surprises. I tried again to write a tiny Android app last year and couldn't figure it out. There's so many moving parts with SDKs, API levels, support libraries, contexts, fra…

Qt makes Android development really simple.

Re: Why is Android Development so difficult/complex? (compared to Web and Desktop)

#27

Post by singularity2001 »

remram wrote: post #9

I wrote apps for Android when I first got a smartphone, circa 2011, and it was so easy. There was a bit of doc to read to understand activities and intents but that was basically it. At that point you could write an app without running into new surprises. I tried again to write a tiny Android app last year and couldn't figure it out. There's so many moving parts with SDKs, API levels, support libraries, contexts, fra…

if you don't mind iOS swift(ui) is the most beautiful software framework I've ever used

Re: Why is Android Development so difficult/complex? (compared to Web and Desktop)

#28

Post by remram »

singularity2001 wrote: post #27
remram wrote: post #9

I wrote apps for Android when I first got a smartphone, circa 2011, and it was so easy. There was a bit of doc to read to understand activities and intents but that was basically it. At that point you could write an app without running into new surprises. I tried again to write a tiny Android app last year and couldn't figure it out. There's so many moving parts with SDKs, API levels, support libraries, contexts, fra…

if you don't mind iOS swift(ui) is the most beautiful software framework I've ever used

I really doubt that, but I'll bite. Why?

Re: Why is Android Development so difficult/complex? (compared to Web and Desktop)

#29

Post by pyeri »

remram wrote: post #28
singularity2001 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you don't mind iOS swift(ui) is the most beautiful software framework I've ever used

I really doubt that, but I'll bite. Why?

Not the OP but at least for me, freedom (open source) comes before elegance and android scores there as do linux distros. Hence, I've never bothered to look at the i-ecosystem at all.

Re: Why is Android Development so difficult/complex? (compared to Web and Desktop)

#30

Post by remram »

pyeri wrote: post #29
remram wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really doubt that, but I'll bite. Why?

Not the OP but at least for me, freedom (open source) comes before elegance and android scores there as do linux distros. Hence, I've never bothered to look at the i-ecosystem at all.

I don't disagree, plus people in this thread have bashed iOS just as much. Still I'm giving GP the benefit of the doubt, might not be purely irrelevant fanboying...?
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