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> overestimating importance of the build system True. Gradle (and its Apache Groovy build DSL) conquered a market by first creating that market. There's really

by vorg 9y ago

> overestimating importance of the build system True. Gradle (and its Apache Groovy build DSL) conquered a market by first creating that market. There's really no need for a build system with a procedural build language -- a declarative language to describe a build like with Make and Ant/Maven is good enough.

HillaryBriss 9y ago
my recollection from the days of the Eclipse plugin is that building from a command line and building from the Eclipse plugin were two separate pathways. you could get a different apk building through the IDE than through some CI system running the build from a command line!! so, they addressed that pain point by using Gradle, which also did dependency management really well (compared to say Ant and, many would argue, Maven) and by incorporating/integrating the Gradle Android plugin with the intelliJ IDE.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  They could have sorted out that problem by using Maven and improving their Eclipse plugins, just like tons of Java developers do every single day. Instead someone at Googleplex managed to steer a team to rebuild the world to their favourite IDE and in the process reboot the whole Android development stack, which by the way is still not done. Oh, and the NDK support was in limbo until Jetbrains released CLion. Had CLion not been released and to this day there wouldn't be a solution how to use the NDK inside Studio. I bet Google IO 2018 will again have a talk about how to improve Android build speeds.
  - izacus 9y ago
    Pretty much anyone not insane these days is switching to the IntelliJ stack. Eclipse development is dead in the water and lagging behind more and more.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      I am yet to use InteliJ professionally, specially given that it requires more beefy computers than Eclipse. Indexing that one cannot turn off unless laptop mode is enabled, spinning the HDD all the time, really? Also none of our customers IT teams allows InteliJ on their leased hardware/VMs to external partners. The exception being Android Studio.
izacus 9y ago
> True. Gradle (and its Apache Groovy build DSL) conquered a market by first creating that market. There's really no need for a build system with a procedural build language -- a declarative language to describe a build like with Make and Ant/Maven is good enough. I don't know, Gradle allowing easy extensions allowed us to do continious delivery significantly easier than with Maven (not to mention iOS build system). It's not a must, but it's a really nice thing to have when you need to build several versions of a build, tag versions dynamically, build docs, etc.

by vorg 9y ago

HillaryBriss 9y ago

my recollection from the days of the Eclipse plugin is that building from a command line and building from the Eclipse plugin were two separate pathways. you could get a different apk building through the IDE than through some CI system running the build from a command line!! so, they addressed that pain point by using Gradle, which also did dependency management really well (compared to say Ant and, many would argue, Maven) and by incorporating/integrating the Gradle Android plugin with the intelliJ IDE.

pjmlp 9y ago
They could have sorted out that problem by using Maven and improving their Eclipse plugins, just like tons of Java developers do every single day. Instead someone at Googleplex managed to steer a team to rebuild the world to their favourite IDE and in the process reboot the whole Android development stack, which by the way is still not done. Oh, and the NDK support was in limbo until Jetbrains released CLion. Had CLion not been released and to this day there wouldn't be a solution how to use the NDK inside Studio. I bet Google IO 2018 will again have a talk about how to improve Android build speeds.
- izacus 9y ago
  Pretty much anyone not insane these days is switching to the IntelliJ stack. Eclipse development is dead in the water and lagging behind more and more.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    I am yet to use InteliJ professionally, specially given that it requires more beefy computers than Eclipse. Indexing that one cannot turn off unless laptop mode is enabled, spinning the HDD all the time, really? Also none of our customers IT teams allows InteliJ on their leased hardware/VMs to external partners. The exception being Android Studio.

izacus 9y ago

> True. Gradle (and its Apache Groovy build DSL) conquered a market by first creating that market. There's really no need for a build system with a procedural build language -- a declarative language to describe a build like with Make and Ant/Maven is good enough. I don't know, Gradle allowing easy extensions allowed us to do continious delivery significantly easier than with Maven (not to mention iOS build system). It's not a must, but it's a really nice thing to have when you need to build several versions of a build, tag versions dynamically, build docs, etc.