10 ms·

Google have not made their own languages Dart/Go official to Android. Why would they make languages other than Java a priority now?

by geodel 10y ago

jahnu 10y ago
* C# is much more mature * It has an enormous user base * It's not owned by Oracle Not saying they will but those are real possible reasons for Google to do this.
- geodel 10y ago
  One possible way out will be something like Swift port to Android made by an open source contributor to Swift. Someone with deep knowledge of C# can take a stab at C# to Android. I'd think Google have very few C# people internally.
  - problems 10y ago
    There already exists C# for Android, it recently became free too when Microsoft bought up Xamarin (the company formerly maintain Mono and the Xamarin Android and iOS wrappers). Microsoft is really pushing .NET Core and the open .NET platform, really an awesome move for developers. What the parent wanted was official support from Google for Xamarin's Android API wrapper or a complete rewrite of core parts of the OS in .NET instead of Java. It seems fairly unlikely because of all the effort Google has invested in their Java VM and JIT/AOT compilers, but maybe that'll change.
    - geodel 10y ago
      I agree with most of it. But I personally think .net/C# simply to not bring enough advances over Java to even think of changing core parts. Most advantages that get mentioned are app developer conveniences.
  - dizzy3gg 10y ago
    They have Jon Skeet, this is enough, at least to attract more c# developers.
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  > * It's not owned by Oracle So you replace one lawsuit-happy DB company with... another lawsuit-happy DB company.
  - KirinDave 10y ago
    It's worth noting that Microsoft is aggressively pledging about patents, open sourcing with very clear and explicit licenses, and making industry-level promises that imply they're serious about making .NET Core an open and usable platform. It would be nicer if there was a managed langauge platform that was not tied to an entity with a history of patent litigation, but let's not lose our sense of scale here. The degree to which Oracle has betrayed our community and tried to undermine the bearable status quo of the software industry to milk the Android ecosystem is as unforgivable as anything Microsoft has done in the darkest depths of the Balmer era.
    - john_reel 10y ago
      Google uses OpenJDK now. Nothing to worry about.
      - JacobiX 10y ago
        OpenJDK remains an Oracle project and all contributors should sign the Oracle Contributor Agreement (OCA). Although, an agreement of this nature exists in some other open source communities. But I feel, hesitant to grant Oracle the following rights : - License any patents bearing on your contributions to Oracle. - Assert that you are legally entitled to grant Oracle these rights. - Oracle have full copyright ownership of all the code in that project.
        zigzigzag 10y ago
        But all sorts of projects have such requirements, any open source project by Google does. That isn't unique or special to Oracle.
  - FT_intern 10y ago
owaislone 10y ago
.NET would have had a real chance at being the android application platform if it was philosophically in the state that it is today (open sourced toolchain/compilers, open-source friendly MS, Mono/Xamarin in good shape). Moving android away from Java is going to be a big undertaking and I doubt Google will undertake such a huge project only to move away from Oracle and closer to MS. If they ever try to replace Java, it'll be Dart or another language they acquire in future. Dart has good chances. They already have an early stage framework to make Android (and iOS) apps with Dart[0]. It's also the main GUI toolkit for their Fuchsia OS [1]. 0 https://flutter.io/ https://flutter.io/ 1 https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/ https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/
- smnscu 10y ago
  Silly idea that will never happen, but imagine Google and Microsoft* working together on Android and it becoming actually open (i.e. not a tool to protect google search on mobile) and easily targetable by Java, C#, Go, etc. apps. From a technical point of view it might sound difficult until you realize modern smartphones are veritable beasts compared to computers 10 years ago, and we've had general purpose OSes for decades now. This is mostly just me shipping Google and Microsoft after their successful recent collaborations like TypeScript. * - based on the premise that MS might be open to this after failing at mobile over and over again
  - int_19h 10y ago
    It's not really so silly from Microsoft's perspective. Given the sorry state of affairs with WP, and company's overall focus on Azure, it would make perfect sense to embrace a popular mobile platform, if this could be translated to more sales of Azure services. What Google is to get out of it is a more interesting question.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    I'm sure it was difficult, but you can already ship C# code using Xamarin, no need to wait for Microsoft.
    - 10y ago
patates 10y ago
Dart doesn't have the adoption yet and has a different plan when it comes to mobile ( https://github.com/flutter/flutter https://github.com/flutter/flutter ). I love Go, but it's not really a suitable language to do UI, or anything that deals with data models. C#, however, is a perfect replacement for Java, most of the times. I would say "it's simply superior in every imaginable metric other than cross-platform implementations of the compiler/VM" but that's just my opinion.
- dom96 10y ago
  Why do you consider Go unsuitable for UI development?
  - patates 10y ago
    You can't have generic functions that can wrap data so you end up passing concrete models or interfaces to views - no generic view-models for you. The inflexibility of the type system isn't a big deal when you are working on network applications or tools, but causes serious duplication when you do anything that passes around concepts internally.
    - bsaul 10y ago
      i don't think generic is relevant to GUI. objective c didn't have generics, and i don't think it mattered in any way when they built cocoa. now generics is a problem of its own when working with data and algorithms, but they managed to get along with it in the backend so far, so...
      - dagi3d 10y ago
        obviously it is doable, but that does not mean there aren't better solutions today.
  - dguaraglia 10y ago
    UI development is one of the areas where object orientation really helps encapsulate the code in smaller chunks that are easy to map mentally to the graphical representation. I'm not sure Go's interfaces are as powerful of an abstraction. Mind you, there might be an opportunity there for developing a different kind of UI paradigm where interface elements don't map to objects and actions are the main driver of screen updates. Anyone has any ideas of such a paradigm?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
> Why would they make languages other than Java a priority now? Because mentat asked please. In other words, it might have less to do with the merit of the language than with the politics of the organization.
jpalomaki 10y ago
Google did have certain disputes over Java with Oracle. That could be one factor. Maybe Google could decide that putting resources on Dalvik and related tool development does not make sense. Maybe they would like to see one language to cover both the client and cloud development.
fbreduc 10y ago
google is not good at making and fostering languages, C# and .net is much better bet

Google have not made their own languages Dart/Go official to Android. Why would they make languages other than Java a priority now?

by geodel 10y ago

Google have not made their own languages Dart/Go official to Android. Why would they make languages other than Java a priority now?

jahnu 10y ago

* C# is much more mature * It has an enormous user base * It's not owned by Oracle Not saying they will but those are real possible reasons for Google to do this.

geodel 10y ago
One possible way out will be something like Swift port to Android made by an open source contributor to Swift. Someone with deep knowledge of C# can take a stab at C# to Android. I'd think Google have very few C# people internally.
- problems 10y ago
  There already exists C# for Android, it recently became free too when Microsoft bought up Xamarin (the company formerly maintain Mono and the Xamarin Android and iOS wrappers). Microsoft is really pushing .NET Core and the open .NET platform, really an awesome move for developers. What the parent wanted was official support from Google for Xamarin's Android API wrapper or a complete rewrite of core parts of the OS in .NET instead of Java. It seems fairly unlikely because of all the effort Google has invested in their Java VM and JIT/AOT compilers, but maybe that'll change.
  - geodel 10y ago
    I agree with most of it. But I personally think .net/C# simply to not bring enough advances over Java to even think of changing core parts. Most advantages that get mentioned are app developer conveniences.
- dizzy3gg 10y ago
  They have Jon Skeet, this is enough, at least to attract more c# developers.
Nullabillity 10y ago
> * It's not owned by Oracle So you replace one lawsuit-happy DB company with... another lawsuit-happy DB company.
- KirinDave 10y ago
  It's worth noting that Microsoft is aggressively pledging about patents, open sourcing with very clear and explicit licenses, and making industry-level promises that imply they're serious about making .NET Core an open and usable platform. It would be nicer if there was a managed langauge platform that was not tied to an entity with a history of patent litigation, but let's not lose our sense of scale here. The degree to which Oracle has betrayed our community and tried to undermine the bearable status quo of the software industry to milk the Android ecosystem is as unforgivable as anything Microsoft has done in the darkest depths of the Balmer era.
  - john_reel 10y ago
    Google uses OpenJDK now. Nothing to worry about.
    - JacobiX 10y ago
      OpenJDK remains an Oracle project and all contributors should sign the Oracle Contributor Agreement (OCA). Although, an agreement of this nature exists in some other open source communities. But I feel, hesitant to grant Oracle the following rights : - License any patents bearing on your contributions to Oracle. - Assert that you are legally entitled to grant Oracle these rights. - Oracle have full copyright ownership of all the code in that project.
      - zigzigzag 10y ago
        But all sorts of projects have such requirements, any open source project by Google does. That isn't unique or special to Oracle.
- FT_intern 10y ago

owaislone 10y ago

.NET would have had a real chance at being the android application platform if it was philosophically in the state that it is today (open sourced toolchain/compilers, open-source friendly MS, Mono/Xamarin in good shape). Moving android away from Java is going to be a big undertaking and I doubt Google will undertake such a huge project only to move away from Oracle and closer to MS. If they ever try to replace Java, it'll be Dart or another language they acquire in future. Dart has good chances. They already have an early stage framework to make Android (and iOS) apps with Dart[0]. It's also the main GUI toolkit for their Fuchsia OS [1]. 0 https://flutter.io/ https://flutter.io/ 1 https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/ https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/

smnscu 10y ago
Silly idea that will never happen, but imagine Google and Microsoft* working together on Android and it becoming actually open (i.e. not a tool to protect google search on mobile) and easily targetable by Java, C#, Go, etc. apps. From a technical point of view it might sound difficult until you realize modern smartphones are veritable beasts compared to computers 10 years ago, and we've had general purpose OSes for decades now. This is mostly just me shipping Google and Microsoft after their successful recent collaborations like TypeScript. * - based on the premise that MS might be open to this after failing at mobile over and over again
- int_19h 10y ago
  It's not really so silly from Microsoft's perspective. Given the sorry state of affairs with WP, and company's overall focus on Azure, it would make perfect sense to embrace a popular mobile platform, if this could be translated to more sales of Azure services. What Google is to get out of it is a more interesting question.
- icebraining 10y ago
  I'm sure it was difficult, but you can already ship C# code using Xamarin, no need to wait for Microsoft.
  - 10y ago

patates 10y ago

Dart doesn't have the adoption yet and has a different plan when it comes to mobile ( https://github.com/flutter/flutter https://github.com/flutter/flutter ). I love Go, but it's not really a suitable language to do UI, or anything that deals with data models. C#, however, is a perfect replacement for Java, most of the times. I would say "it's simply superior in every imaginable metric other than cross-platform implementations of the compiler/VM" but that's just my opinion.

dom96 10y ago
Why do you consider Go unsuitable for UI development?
- patates 10y ago
  You can't have generic functions that can wrap data so you end up passing concrete models or interfaces to views - no generic view-models for you. The inflexibility of the type system isn't a big deal when you are working on network applications or tools, but causes serious duplication when you do anything that passes around concepts internally.
  - bsaul 10y ago
    i don't think generic is relevant to GUI. objective c didn't have generics, and i don't think it mattered in any way when they built cocoa. now generics is a problem of its own when working with data and algorithms, but they managed to get along with it in the backend so far, so...
    - dagi3d 10y ago
      obviously it is doable, but that does not mean there aren't better solutions today.
- dguaraglia 10y ago
  UI development is one of the areas where object orientation really helps encapsulate the code in smaller chunks that are easy to map mentally to the graphical representation. I'm not sure Go's interfaces are as powerful of an abstraction. Mind you, there might be an opportunity there for developing a different kind of UI paradigm where interface elements don't map to objects and actions are the main driver of screen updates. Anyone has any ideas of such a paradigm?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago

> Why would they make languages other than Java a priority now? Because mentat asked please. In other words, it might have less to do with the merit of the language than with the politics of the organization.

jpalomaki 10y ago

Google did have certain disputes over Java with Oracle. That could be one factor. Maybe Google could decide that putting resources on Dalvik and related tool development does not make sense. Maybe they would like to see one language to cover both the client and cloud development.

fbreduc 10y ago

google is not good at making and fostering languages, C# and .net is much better bet