41–50 of 157 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gradle replaced Maven which replaced ant which replaced make. The tech treadmill was one of the reasons I retired early and I'm glad I did. What is the new hotness replacing Gradle?
Kotlin DSL https://developer.android.com/build/migrate-to-kotlin-dsl This one makes sense, though the improvement is minor.
But I feel you, if you don't have enough experience dealing with different Android, Gradle, AS errors then you're really having a bad day. But shouldn't be a deal breaker, just give it some time and more familiarity.
There's a bigger issue here: OP describes writing prototype software on a desktop, and compares this to writing more production-style software on a highly constrained mobile device. This isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. Python packaging is notoriously bad, and while you can get a Linux/Windows compatible script without too much work, getting to a single executable that just runs is much harder. Cloning a repo, s…
I don't buy your "security through difficulty" argument for that reason alone.
I remember asking some Android devs, "How do I install a compiler on Android?" They proceeded to tell me what to download on my laptop. I repeated my question, emphasizing "ON Android". They gave me blank looks. I said, "I want to install a toolchain ON an Android device, and run it there. How do I do that?" They had no idea. I asked, "What if you want to compile something that requires compiling something, then usin…
What you want is to cross compile using the NDK toolchain. That should get you 95% of the way there (barring tweaking with downstream project flags to work with bionic libc and limited Android user land and other Android idiosyncrasies)
If you ever have to work with native code (or things like OpenCV) start praying from day one and never stop.
You need bigger and bigger laptops to even run that disgrace of an IDE Android Studio. This always gets me!
So dev tools/env? Oh, god! Fuck Google!
You should try iOS dev.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/78244976/package-resolve...
Kotlin is a dream. I literally love writing it.
I'm also curious if it is just me. I am a grey hair now, with many other responsibilities. Why were C, Python and Go so easy for me when kotlin seems so hard to penetrate (for me)? Is there a way to quantify language complexity?
I also agree that the development experience is awful. I have more than 10 years as an Android developer and Android Studio (someone remember when it was derived from Eclipse?) is painfully slow, even in modern machines. Just starting a new project is a ridiculously sluggish process. Also Gradle is a piece of hyper-complicated software that (almost) nobody is interested in, but it is there and you have to deal with i…
At this point I have a clean repo with Blaze set up that I use as a starting point for Android applications. Then Android Studio with the Blaze plugin and I'm set.
I also agree that the development experience is awful. I have more than 10 years as an Android developer and Android Studio (someone remember when it was derived from Eclipse?) is painfully slow, even in modern machines. Just starting a new project is a ridiculously sluggish process. Also Gradle is a piece of hyper-complicated software that (almost) nobody is interested in, but it is there and you have to deal with i…
Library management got a LOT nicer when it was introduced, but surely we didn't need all of that to achieve it.