6 ms·

Other Android Languages

62 points by fogus 16y ago

joubert 16y ago
I wonder why Google chose Java in the first place, instead of a Python runtime...
- joezydeco 16y ago
  Does python runtime have a native interface like JNI? Android was quickly leveraging a lot of C and C++ code to get the system up and running. Using Java's JNI may have helped bootstrap that process faster.
  - joubert 16y ago
    Yes, you can interface with C/C++. http://www.swig.org/ http://www.swig.org/ Not only that, you can also extend Python with C/C++ - http://docs.python.org/release/2.5.2/ext/intro.html http://docs.python.org/release/2.5.2/ext/intro.html
- elblanco 16y ago
  Wasn't Android developed by another company that was then later acquired by Google? http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc20050817_0949_tc024.htm http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc200... At the time, most mobile phone dev was done in Java (and probably still is today). It seems natural to want to leverage those developers for the new OS rather than have them learn a whole new skillset.
  - joubert 16y ago
    duh. you're right; I forgot about that. impressive then that in such a short period of time, Infinite Loop got so many people to develop in an "obscure" language/SDK.
  - TeHCrAzY 16y ago
    Not to mention that the number of developers whom can create in Java vastly outnumbers those in Python.
pierrefar 16y ago
An interesting twist to this, although technically not what he stated were the objectives, are tools like Phonegap and Titanium: you write HTML and JS that gets wrapped up in webkit and it works like a "real" Android (and iPhone) app. But as I said, nowhere near as low level as he wanted. There is also a Ruby-based project but I can't remember its name.
- silversmith 16y ago
  The ruby based project would most likely be Rhomobile Rhodes.
  - pierrefar 16y ago
    Yes, that's it. Thanks.
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
I'd love to use Javascript to code for Android.
- rcoder 16y ago
  You can already do this using Rhino, but it isn't a huge win without idiomatic library wrappers that make the Android Java APIs a little less Java-ish.
  - jared314 16y ago
    And, hopefully, a little less c-ish at the same time.
davidw 16y ago
Hecl runs ok on Android, although he talks about Python and Ruby, so that excludes us. Oh well...
- draegtun 16y ago
  Yes the article is a bit blinkered especially when Perl, Lua, BeanShell, JavaScript, Tcl, and shell are already available options on Android (along with Python & JRuby): http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/
  - msg 16y ago
    He talks about this specifically. "JRuby also appears in Scripting Layer for Android (SL4A), formerly the Android Scripting Environment, of which more later." "But maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree; both Python and Ruby are written in C and run well on Linux boxes, which is what Android devices are. In fact CPython has already been ported to Android as part of SL4A; I can’t imagine that Ruby would be that much harder. Also, I’m confident that they’d start up quickly and run acceptably fast." "SL4A · Whatever the right answer is, some of the work done in what we used to call the Android Scripting Environment will surely go into it. They’re not trying to solve the same problem I am; they want to empower people to knock off little scripts right there on the phone; which is interesting, but I want to write big substantial Android apps using the nice tools on my computer with effortless built-in access to all those nice Android APIs. ¶ But they’ve cracked some very nontrivial porting nuts and figured out one instructive way to expose Android’s APIs to whatever programming language comes along."
    - draegtun 16y ago
      Yes thats why I put Python & JRuby in brackets. But there was no mention about any of the other languages already working on Android as part of the SL4A.
towndrunk 16y ago
I would like to use Objective-c so I can leverage most of the iPhone code and libraries I have. I know it's looked down upon but I have become productive in objective-c.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  The problem is not Objective C but the classes that compose the iOS framework. Perhaps the GNUStep people could help porting some (or you could help them).
earl 16y ago
I've gotten scala to work on the simulator and on a nexus one. It was an enormously painful process, with many sets of contradictory and outdated walkthroughs on the net and clearly very little people actually getting this to work.

62 points by fogus 16y ago

joubert 16y ago

I wonder why Google chose Java in the first place, instead of a Python runtime...

joezydeco 16y ago
Does python runtime have a native interface like JNI? Android was quickly leveraging a lot of C and C++ code to get the system up and running. Using Java's JNI may have helped bootstrap that process faster.
- joubert 16y ago
  Yes, you can interface with C/C++. http://www.swig.org/ http://www.swig.org/ Not only that, you can also extend Python with C/C++ - http://docs.python.org/release/2.5.2/ext/intro.html http://docs.python.org/release/2.5.2/ext/intro.html
elblanco 16y ago
Wasn't Android developed by another company that was then later acquired by Google? http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc20050817_0949_tc024.htm http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc200... At the time, most mobile phone dev was done in Java (and probably still is today). It seems natural to want to leverage those developers for the new OS rather than have them learn a whole new skillset.
- joubert 16y ago
  duh. you're right; I forgot about that. impressive then that in such a short period of time, Infinite Loop got so many people to develop in an "obscure" language/SDK.
- TeHCrAzY 16y ago
  Not to mention that the number of developers whom can create in Java vastly outnumbers those in Python.

pierrefar 16y ago

An interesting twist to this, although technically not what he stated were the objectives, are tools like Phonegap and Titanium: you write HTML and JS that gets wrapped up in webkit and it works like a "real" Android (and iPhone) app. But as I said, nowhere near as low level as he wanted. There is also a Ruby-based project but I can't remember its name.

silversmith 16y ago
The ruby based project would most likely be Rhomobile Rhodes.
- pierrefar 16y ago
  Yes, that's it. Thanks.

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

I'd love to use Javascript to code for Android.

rcoder 16y ago
You can already do this using Rhino, but it isn't a huge win without idiomatic library wrappers that make the Android Java APIs a little less Java-ish.
- jared314 16y ago
  And, hopefully, a little less c-ish at the same time.

davidw 16y ago

Hecl runs ok on Android, although he talks about Python and Ruby, so that excludes us. Oh well...

draegtun 16y ago
Yes the article is a bit blinkered especially when Perl, Lua, BeanShell, JavaScript, Tcl, and shell are already available options on Android (along with Python & JRuby): http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/
- msg 16y ago
  He talks about this specifically. "JRuby also appears in Scripting Layer for Android (SL4A), formerly the Android Scripting Environment, of which more later." "But maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree; both Python and Ruby are written in C and run well on Linux boxes, which is what Android devices are. In fact CPython has already been ported to Android as part of SL4A; I can’t imagine that Ruby would be that much harder. Also, I’m confident that they’d start up quickly and run acceptably fast." "SL4A · Whatever the right answer is, some of the work done in what we used to call the Android Scripting Environment will surely go into it. They’re not trying to solve the same problem I am; they want to empower people to knock off little scripts right there on the phone; which is interesting, but I want to write big substantial Android apps using the nice tools on my computer with effortless built-in access to all those nice Android APIs. ¶ But they’ve cracked some very nontrivial porting nuts and figured out one instructive way to expose Android’s APIs to whatever programming language comes along."
  - draegtun 16y ago
    Yes thats why I put Python & JRuby in brackets. But there was no mention about any of the other languages already working on Android as part of the SL4A.

towndrunk 16y ago

I would like to use Objective-c so I can leverage most of the iPhone code and libraries I have. I know it's looked down upon but I have become productive in objective-c.

rbanffy 16y ago
The problem is not Objective C but the classes that compose the iOS framework. Perhaps the GNUStep people could help porting some (or you could help them).

earl 16y ago

I've gotten scala to work on the simulator and on a nexus one. It was an enormously painful process, with many sets of contradictory and outdated walkthroughs on the net and clearly very little people actually getting this to work.