6 ms·

Android soon to be able to distribute Python apps as .APKs

63 points by iamelgringo 16y ago

v_ 16y ago
ASE is awesome, but it doesn't expose the full android API to python scripts. http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/wiki/ApiReference http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/wiki/ApiReference is what you get currently, though this list seems to be growing pretty quickly.
- est 16y ago
  Google Apps Scripts is also awesome! http://www.google.com/google-d-s/scripts/scripts.html http://www.google.com/google-d-s/scripts/scripts.html
moe 16y ago
Anyone know how scripted apps affect battery life?
- andrewbadera 16y ago
  My first thought as well. Battery life on my Incredible is poor at best as it is. I don't want to pony up for an oversize battery and wreck the profile, I need it to fit in a case/holster/mount/etc.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    How fast does battery technology progress? I've replaced a few batteries in iPods and Nintendo DS's and I'm fairly certain they were rated much higher than the stock ones, while being surprisingly cheap. Does it go fast enough to make a material difference between choosing a phone with or without user accessible batteries and purchasing a newer battery 6 or 12 months later?
    - adbge 16y ago
      Interesting, I've never thought about replacing a phone battery with a higher-end model (can you tell I have an iPhone?) I'm curious as to the actual battery life gains one would see and the effect on weight , etc. I must have benchmarks!
      - jsz0 16y ago
        From what I've seen extended life batteries for phones tend to be 100-200mAh larger than stock batteries. So I think that would work out to a ~10% improvement for most phones. It really depends on the capacity of the OEM battery. I remember seeing a 2000mAh+ battery for the EVO which would be nearly a 25% improvement over the stock battery.
    - corysama 16y ago
      Historically, battery tech progress has been depressingly slow. Slow enough to be the primary limiting factor for a lot of technologies. The vast majority of progress has been in reducing power consumption rather than increasing power storage.
barredo 16y ago
Noob here: What about the GUI? How it will be created?
sprout 16y ago
I've been really happy ever since I installed Python on my Droid. It's really fun to show off how you can access text-to-speech with droid.speak(). I'm not sure I buy it will be useful for development without a custom VM, but I have the full power of a 500 mhz (ish) processor wherever I am.
SingAlong 16y ago
Now the important question, will it hurt frame rate if games are developed using Python instead of Java for android?
- ggruschow 16y ago
  Do you have some reason to believe that Google seriously hosed the Java implementation on Android or these guys have massively increased the efficiency of the Python implementation? Otherwise, it seems the answer would have to be yes.. the same algorithm will usually perform (much) worse in Python than in Java. Note I don't mean to slam Python here.. just being practical. Python's my primary language. Development efficiency usually trumps execution inefficiency.
- dustingetz 16y ago
  a python interface to a lower level rendering library could mitigate most of that effect. otoh, serious game writing is pretty hardcore tech, cutting-edge game devs probably won't jump into python right away.
  - ggruschow 16y ago
    No bother.. Most cutting edge game devs wouldn't jump into Android right away either.
  - chipsy 16y ago
    Python is going to chug even on relatively simple action games. I did write some 2D stuff in Pygame/SDL and Pygame/OpenGL back in the early-mid 2000s that could do 30FPS, but to do it was akin to writing in BASIC on an 8-bit; you had to micro-optimize in a fairly brutal way, one which obscured Python's powers. Things like rendering a tilemap could get huge speed boosts simply by avoiding nested loops in favor of a cache. Even using OpenGL wasn't really enough to secure a comfortable margin of performance. If I did it again I would have an easier time because I missed a few critical constructs back then(most notably, the array package). It still wouldn't be pretty, especially not on a phone.
zokier 16y ago
Just to provide a counterpoint: N900/Maemo has had the ability to have apps distributed in an arbitrary language since launch, and Nokia seems to especially like Python, sponsoring the developement of Qt bindings for it etc.
spicyj 16y ago
Project #6 for the Ruby Summer of Code is getting JRuby apps on Android to work: http://rubysoc.org/projects http://rubysoc.org/projects
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  You can do some sick stuff right now: Ruboto On Acid http://jay.mcgavren.com/blog/archives/1419 http://jay.mcgavren.com/blog/archives/1419
openfly 16y ago
I hope this stuff is executing on top of Dalvik and not via the NDK.

63 points by iamelgringo 16y ago

v_ 16y ago

ASE is awesome, but it doesn't expose the full android API to python scripts. http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/wiki/ApiReference http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/wiki/ApiReference is what you get currently, though this list seems to be growing pretty quickly.

est 16y ago
Google Apps Scripts is also awesome! http://www.google.com/google-d-s/scripts/scripts.html http://www.google.com/google-d-s/scripts/scripts.html

moe 16y ago

Anyone know how scripted apps affect battery life?

andrewbadera 16y ago
My first thought as well. Battery life on my Incredible is poor at best as it is. I don't want to pony up for an oversize battery and wreck the profile, I need it to fit in a case/holster/mount/etc.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  How fast does battery technology progress? I've replaced a few batteries in iPods and Nintendo DS's and I'm fairly certain they were rated much higher than the stock ones, while being surprisingly cheap. Does it go fast enough to make a material difference between choosing a phone with or without user accessible batteries and purchasing a newer battery 6 or 12 months later?
  - adbge 16y ago
    Interesting, I've never thought about replacing a phone battery with a higher-end model (can you tell I have an iPhone?) I'm curious as to the actual battery life gains one would see and the effect on weight , etc. I must have benchmarks!
    - jsz0 16y ago
      From what I've seen extended life batteries for phones tend to be 100-200mAh larger than stock batteries. So I think that would work out to a ~10% improvement for most phones. It really depends on the capacity of the OEM battery. I remember seeing a 2000mAh+ battery for the EVO which would be nearly a 25% improvement over the stock battery.
  - corysama 16y ago
    Historically, battery tech progress has been depressingly slow. Slow enough to be the primary limiting factor for a lot of technologies. The vast majority of progress has been in reducing power consumption rather than increasing power storage.

barredo 16y ago

Noob here: What about the GUI? How it will be created?

sprout 16y ago

I've been really happy ever since I installed Python on my Droid. It's really fun to show off how you can access text-to-speech with droid.speak(). I'm not sure I buy it will be useful for development without a custom VM, but I have the full power of a 500 mhz (ish) processor wherever I am.

SingAlong 16y ago

Now the important question, will it hurt frame rate if games are developed using Python instead of Java for android?

ggruschow 16y ago
Do you have some reason to believe that Google seriously hosed the Java implementation on Android or these guys have massively increased the efficiency of the Python implementation? Otherwise, it seems the answer would have to be yes.. the same algorithm will usually perform (much) worse in Python than in Java. Note I don't mean to slam Python here.. just being practical. Python's my primary language. Development efficiency usually trumps execution inefficiency.
dustingetz 16y ago
a python interface to a lower level rendering library could mitigate most of that effect. otoh, serious game writing is pretty hardcore tech, cutting-edge game devs probably won't jump into python right away.
- ggruschow 16y ago
  No bother.. Most cutting edge game devs wouldn't jump into Android right away either.
- chipsy 16y ago
  Python is going to chug even on relatively simple action games. I did write some 2D stuff in Pygame/SDL and Pygame/OpenGL back in the early-mid 2000s that could do 30FPS, but to do it was akin to writing in BASIC on an 8-bit; you had to micro-optimize in a fairly brutal way, one which obscured Python's powers. Things like rendering a tilemap could get huge speed boosts simply by avoiding nested loops in favor of a cache. Even using OpenGL wasn't really enough to secure a comfortable margin of performance. If I did it again I would have an easier time because I missed a few critical constructs back then(most notably, the array package). It still wouldn't be pretty, especially not on a phone.

zokier 16y ago

Just to provide a counterpoint: N900/Maemo has had the ability to have apps distributed in an arbitrary language since launch, and Nokia seems to especially like Python, sponsoring the developement of Qt bindings for it etc.

spicyj 16y ago

Project #6 for the Ruby Summer of Code is getting JRuby apps on Android to work: http://rubysoc.org/projects http://rubysoc.org/projects

jamesbritt 16y ago
You can do some sick stuff right now: Ruboto On Acid http://jay.mcgavren.com/blog/archives/1419 http://jay.mcgavren.com/blog/archives/1419

openfly 16y ago

I hope this stuff is executing on top of Dalvik and not via the NDK.