
5 things I learned as an Android developer after doing some Web development - shem8
https://hackernoon.com/5-things-i-learned-as-an-android-developer-after-doing-some-web-development-35268cd47c38
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flukus
The author should try some desktop tools as well, like gtk/qt and xaml with
c#. Short of direct win32/xlib programming android is probably the most
convoluted environment around and always has been. Here
([http://flukus.github.io/2014/08/19/2014_08_19_Android-
Take-b...](http://flukus.github.io/2014/08/19/2014_08_19_Android-Take-back-
your-builds/) \- personal blogspam) I delved into some of the tooling that the
IDE has to do to make it somewhat passable, it's obvious why some devs see the
appeal of electron.

~~~
mathw
It astonishes me still that Android development is such an unpleasant
experience. Surely Google have the capability to improve this, but they've
stuck with an outdated version of Java, some really weirdly convoluted APIs
and build systems, and just generally kept it feeling like it's something from
15 or more years ago.

~~~
javajosh
I'd argue that the Android tooling shows us _exactly_ the kind of software
people who can answer algorithm problems on a whiteboard for 6 hours are
capable of making. (Note: IntelliJ IDEA is quite well-made; I'm speaking only
of the Android-specific tooling.)

If I could tell Google's Android staff anything, it would be this: _software
is more than just a list of features_ . It's a loop connecting mind and
machine that must iterate until a viable application is produced. Producing a
binary artifact capable of hydrating a process that can respond to N events
and trigger M side-effects should only take NxM steps to learn, but Android
has always felt way over-architected to me (which might just be poor
documentation that wildly vacillates between being literal+concrete and manic
architectural language).

Maybe the worst thing they have is _a working list of features_. You _can_
build Android apps with what they give you, and quickly if you practice. But
"good enough" has always been the enemy of "pleasant" (let alone "elegant"),
and that makes me sad.

