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Ask HN: How do you keep sane while developing for Android?

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Ask HN: How do you keep sane while developing for Android?

#1
There's something wrong with the ecosystem..

1). Android Studio is one of the worst pieces of software I've ever had to code with. The cursor randomly disappears while editing files. When a physical device is connected to the machine, it will sometimes screw up the sound and start playing out of the speakers even though your headphones are connected.

2). Every time you post a question in-regards to the IDE, there's usually a flurry of down-votes. But sometimes there'll be a person who says it's a known bug. Contrast that to questions critiquing xCode on SO, people will be generally happier to help out..

3). You can't organize your XML files in folders. Again, when I asked this on SO, people were arguing that what's the point of having subfolders.. Seriously?

4). It's fragmented as fuck. I feel like each question I ask, I have to always contain 2+ additional files to give context to a very simple problem.

5). It's tough discovering useful 3rd party libraries.. There's no gradle equivalent of cocoadocs.

I actually enjoyed programming with the Spring Framework, but this has just been disappointing all-around..

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep sane while developing for Android?

#2
I develop for Android using Xamarin/C# with Visual Studio. I don't have any of the IDE related issues you have, but there are a whole host of problems with Xamarin too, so the grass isn't necessarily greener on this side. Plus, Xamarin/C# are fairly pricey, even with the student discount I get.

I will say that the IDE/Environment are first class, however.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep sane while developing for Android?

#6
I developed for mobile platforms for a very short time. WindowsPhone has probably the best, most consistent tools.

Android tools, paradigms and platform-imposed choices are just ridiculous. People who have done this for a long time will be defensive because they got used to that mess.

Tl;Dr : It is 2015 and the only decent mobile platform to code on has basically no users.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep sane while developing for Android?

#7

I sometimes just use subl or emacs as my editor and then use gradle and adb right from the command line. If you wanted to get fancy, you could even write a little script that lets you rebuild on change.

How's your experience coding in Java on emacs?

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep sane while developing for Android?

#9
post #8

Just out of curiosity, can anyone speak to what're the main complaints about developing for iOs, other than the well known byzantine labyrinth of actual app approval for the apple walled garden.

We need a Mac to do it , make it cross platform and we'll have a deal here.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep sane while developing for Android?

#10
post #7

I sometimes just use subl or emacs as my editor and then use gradle and adb right from the command line. If you wanted to get fancy, you could even write a little script that lets you rebuild on change.

How's your experience coding in Java on emacs?

Why do people immediately ask this kind of question when one mentions using vim or emacs for Java? I haven't found it to be any different than python or JS.
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