5 ms·

The hero that android needs is a complete rewrite of Activities and Fragments into something that makes sense in a stateful application

kazman68 9y ago
Check out architecture components announced on Wednesday, I think you'll be interested in LifecycleObserver and LifecycleActivity
- m_fayer 9y ago
  Right. Fundamental flaws in the architecture that they try to paper over with some half-baked library that stays stuck in beta forever, is poorly documented, has major bugs and oversights, and in the end does much less than what you would expect. See: databinding library. I normally try not to be so vitriolic on HN, but I'm so frustrated with Google's handling of the Android API that I can't help it.
jackbravo 9y ago
but we don't get the hero that we need. Kotlin is the hero we deserve...
ashark 9y ago
I was gonna go with "a complete rewrite of the API/SDK by someone other than (apparently) the Summer interns" but yeah, that's a big part of it.
Nandi 9y ago
Kotlin was not required. Android developers keep losing focus on what's more important and what's less; with the dance of variations of MVP patterns, RxJava, 10 ways to do the same shit. Now even Google has to focus on 2 things, providing support for 2 languages. Java 9 is on the verge of being released and we are just getting parts of Java 8. Yes, we do not need all features, but what we actually need is FOCUS.
- jondwillis 9y ago
  What would you like "us" to focus on? As for MVP variations and RxJava, those are useful tools. MVP variations are often for organization and writing more modular, testable code. RxJava and other Rx implementations are useful for describing data flows and transformations while also making complicated asynchronous problems more manageable.
  - Nandi 9y ago
    MVP & Rx are good, no doubt. But there are a crazy amount of Pundits preaching different variations and thanks to the internet an early developer/beginner is confused. I have spent several hours helping others rectify basic mistakes. There should be some serious and well-documented approaches to achieve something (a performant app in this case). Decay is also important. As frameworks mature and android itself moves ahead, old documentation or answers which no longer have relevance should be purged. Android documentation itself boasts old sample codes, while the framework has deprecated some of them. The problem which OEMs faced are being resolved now, but the reality is it will take another year or two for it to come live. In 2013 Huawei had come up with its own extension to segregate its own modification with vendor and base; very sure that's not getting removed at least in the next 1 year.

kazman68 9y ago

Check out architecture components announced on Wednesday, I think you'll be interested in LifecycleObserver and LifecycleActivity

m_fayer 9y ago
Right. Fundamental flaws in the architecture that they try to paper over with some half-baked library that stays stuck in beta forever, is poorly documented, has major bugs and oversights, and in the end does much less than what you would expect. See: databinding library. I normally try not to be so vitriolic on HN, but I'm so frustrated with Google's handling of the Android API that I can't help it.

jackbravo 9y ago

but we don't get the hero that we need. Kotlin is the hero we deserve...

ashark 9y ago

I was gonna go with "a complete rewrite of the API/SDK by someone other than (apparently) the Summer interns" but yeah, that's a big part of it.

Nandi 9y ago

Kotlin was not required. Android developers keep losing focus on what's more important and what's less; with the dance of variations of MVP patterns, RxJava, 10 ways to do the same shit. Now even Google has to focus on 2 things, providing support for 2 languages. Java 9 is on the verge of being released and we are just getting parts of Java 8. Yes, we do not need all features, but what we actually need is FOCUS.

jondwillis 9y ago
What would you like "us" to focus on? As for MVP variations and RxJava, those are useful tools. MVP variations are often for organization and writing more modular, testable code. RxJava and other Rx implementations are useful for describing data flows and transformations while also making complicated asynchronous problems more manageable.
- Nandi 9y ago
  MVP & Rx are good, no doubt. But there are a crazy amount of Pundits preaching different variations and thanks to the internet an early developer/beginner is confused. I have spent several hours helping others rectify basic mistakes. There should be some serious and well-documented approaches to achieve something (a performant app in this case). Decay is also important. As frameworks mature and android itself moves ahead, old documentation or answers which no longer have relevance should be purged. Android documentation itself boasts old sample codes, while the framework has deprecated some of them. The problem which OEMs faced are being resolved now, but the reality is it will take another year or two for it to come live. In 2013 Huawei had come up with its own extension to segregate its own modification with vendor and base; very sure that's not getting removed at least in the next 1 year.