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It might be a stupid ask, but: What would it take for Android to start support for a different dev language (being able to write an app in js or Swift for examp

It might be a stupid ask, but: What would it take for Android to start support for a different dev language (being able to write an app in js or Swift for example)? Also, is it never the case that when a new language is released (Java 8 for example) there is usually a strong emphasis on backwards compatibility (compiling into all or a few previous versions' bytecodes)?

acveilleux 11y ago
You can get Java 6 bytecode from a Java 8 compiler but it will fail to compile if you used Java 8 features: $ jdk-1.8-64/bin/javac -target 1.6 -source 1.6 LambdaTest.java warning: [options] bootstrap class path not set in conjunction with -source 1.6 LambdaTest.java:16: error: lambda expressions are not supported in -source 1.6 Runnable r2 = () -> System.out.println("Hello world two!"); ^ (use -source 8 or higher to enable lambda expressions) 1 error 1 warning Trying to heed the error: $ jdk-1.8-64/bin/javac -target 1.6 -source 8 LambdaTest.java javac: source release 8 requires target release 1.8