

Android development in Visual Studio. Am I crazy? - jere_jones
http://www.vsadt.com/blog/2010/10/24/eclipse-sucks.html

======
d_r
At least on the Eclipse front, one thing that may not be obvious is that it
comes by default with some very low and inadequate memory settings. This can
lead to abysmal performance with the Android SDK.

The fix is easy: up your memory settings in eclipse.ini

<http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse.ini>

Specifically, I'd look at these minimum/maximum heap size settings:

    
    
      -Xms40m
      -Xmx256m
    

Mine has:

    
    
      -Xms128m
      -Xmx1024m

~~~
jere_jones
There's a tip that should be more public! I will try that.

------
theBobMcCormick
I don't know anything about Visual Studio, but I do know it's quite possible
to do Android development in _any_ text editor, although it's certainly easier
in an editor that understands Java. You don't need any special IDE support, or
even an IDE at all. All the project creation, building, etc. can be done quite
easily from the command line.

I built my first Android app using Emacs (and the command line), because I
already was somewhat familiar with Emacs and was completely unfamiliar with
Eclipse. Then I switched to Eclipse, mostly to get familiar with and see what
all the fuss is. Like you, I'm not a fan. I'm currently trying out Intellij,
which so far seems pretty nice. I'd really recommend trying it.

IMHO, I think the hardest part of your project will be trying to get Visual
Studio to support Java.

~~~
jere_jones
You're absolutely right. Getting VS to edit Java files and build the apks
wasn't too difficult. What will make it awesome is getting intellisense
working. I will have to write a language service for that.

------
MrMan
I don't think MSFT will want to encourage mobile app devs to write apps for
any platform but WP7, and I also think that there is a market for this
product. I personally would buy it. So you will not likely face competition
from the biggest party who could summarily put you out of business, but there
will probably be other small teams that think of this.

You just need to work better, not necessarily faster, than them.

------
bdfh42
My brother's approach is tangential to this. He uses Visual Studio to write
his code and to lay out his forms (using his VS language of choice) and then
crunches the result through a program that outputs the Java code. Again a work
in progress but it has already been put to practical use.

------
billjings
Eclipse+ADT have saved my day in combination with Eclipse Memory Analyzer
Tool. I'm sure there are other Java power tools that would be missed if you
gave up on Eclipse, too.

Having said that, and bearing in mind the utility of stuff like the File
Browser and debugger, I never liked working in Eclipse. I use eclim and send
it commands from vim, and that's all the IDE I usually need. I also avoid
using ADT for commands that can be better used through adb and shell script -
e.g. logcat is much more useful when I can tee it to a local file and analyze
it in a real text editor than it is in ADT's view.

------
musket
Crazy? maybe just a bit, but the idea is great. VS is one of the best IDEs out
there. I would certainly give it a go. Two questions: will it have intelisense
and a debugger?

Good luck!

~~~
jere_jones
Oh yes! Those are the two biggest reasons that I love VS.

------
jere_jones
My principal goal for submitting this is to get your opinion on the project.
It will be a lot of work. Much more work than just adjusting to Eclipse. So,
am I crazy? Is there a market for this? Would you use it?

I know about and have used MonoDroid (I'm a part of their beta and it is
awesome), but I'd like something that doesn't require an extra runtime on the
phone.

Thanks for your input!

~~~
portman
I would use it, but probably not pay a TON, as my interest in Android
development is as a hobbiest not a professional.

I'd definitely pay $99, probably pay $199, but definitely wouldn't pay $499.

By the way, you might get a better sample posting this same question at
<http://programmers.stackexchange.com> \-- it's a more Microsoft-centric crowd
than Hacker News.

~~~
jere_jones
Thank you for putting an actual price in your comment! Expensive is relative
and knowing someone else's point of view is very helpful.

------
twymer
Have you looked at using IntelliJ instead of Eclipse? I've not used it, but it
might be more of what you're looking for.

~~~
jere_jones
I have looked at it, but I haven't given it the amount of time that I have
given Eclipse. I just ran into too many bugs that revolved around its
interaction with the emulator.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
Hmm.. Intellij's been working fine with the Android emulator for me. What kind
of problems are you running into?

That was actually one of the main things that caused me to look for
alternatives to Eclipse, is that I kept running into weird bugs where Eclipse
would refuse to re-build my project. :-(

------
icegreentea
I know this sidesteps the entire point of getting Java and such up and
running, but can't you just use VS to write standard C++ and then use the NDK?
(sorry, your site is blocked at work, I'm just guessing here)

~~~
jere_jones
The NDK is really only good for writing back end stuff. You can't do any UI
with it.

------
andreadallera
There's a plugin for NetBeans that works wonders, here
<http://wiki.netbeans.org/IntroAndroidDevNetBeans> all the instructions to
install it.

If you, like me, come from VS, NetBeans is an excellent substitute for it.

