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I've been looking into mobile development with Python several times over the years but it doesn't look like it's going anywhere – the community seems very small

I've been looking into mobile development with Python several times over the years but it doesn't look like it's going anywhere – the community seems very small and the possibilities are… very finite. It's kinda sad – Python could have been a great language for mobile platforms – easy to learn, expressive and concise, with a fantastic community and ecosystem behind it – but for some reason mobile platforms have been completely neglected by the Python community so far. Why is that? And what could be done to change this? The two main obstacles I see: 1) Native-looking UIs and bindings for platform libraries 2) Performance With enough effort, though, I do think both of these could be solved.

oblio 6y ago
The thing is, it's probably very unrewarding work in very hostile environments (maybe Android is slightly friendlier but I can't imagine iOS is a nice platform to port your ecosystem to). So it looks a ton like something you'd mainly do if you were paid to do it.
BigBathtubLobby 6y ago
How would 2) be dealt with? Python is handicapped to a much more meaningful degree than current mobile options, e.g. while Kotlin isn't as fast as Swift (and Swift's syntax is a strange PITA), Python is much slower than both, the only boon being the larger community surrounding it + legibility. OTOH, with the performance headroom on current devices, I suppose the performance loss matters less. Then again, Electron applications seem to inspire frustration across the spectrum with PC's and Macs. As for 1): I agree. As a tangentially-related rant, I do wish more resources were spent providing UI kits and easy integration of API's to third-party developers. IIRC Google still doesn't provide the same high-quality UI resources as Apple does, which is partially to blame for an app quality disparity moreso than disparate user bases.
- BiteCode_dev 6y ago
  Python the language != Python the runtime.
  - VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
    practically it is
  - nine_k 6y ago
    Jython exists, and is in the same performance ballpark as CPython. Python does so much highly dynamic stuff that even writing a good JIT compiler for it is hard, OTOH these exist. On top of all, it has GIL. I suppose the plain bytecode interpreters are as fast as possible.

oblio 6y ago

The thing is, it's probably very unrewarding work in very hostile environments (maybe Android is slightly friendlier but I can't imagine iOS is a nice platform to port your ecosystem to). So it looks a ton like something you'd mainly do if you were paid to do it.

BigBathtubLobby 6y ago

How would 2) be dealt with? Python is handicapped to a much more meaningful degree than current mobile options, e.g. while Kotlin isn't as fast as Swift (and Swift's syntax is a strange PITA), Python is much slower than both, the only boon being the larger community surrounding it + legibility. OTOH, with the performance headroom on current devices, I suppose the performance loss matters less. Then again, Electron applications seem to inspire frustration across the spectrum with PC's and Macs. As for 1): I agree. As a tangentially-related rant, I do wish more resources were spent providing UI kits and easy integration of API's to third-party developers. IIRC Google still doesn't provide the same high-quality UI resources as Apple does, which is partially to blame for an app quality disparity moreso than disparate user bases.

BiteCode_dev 6y ago
Python the language != Python the runtime.
- VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
  practically it is
- nine_k 6y ago
  Jython exists, and is in the same performance ballpark as CPython. Python does so much highly dynamic stuff that even writing a good JIT compiler for it is hard, OTOH these exist. On top of all, it has GIL. I suppose the plain bytecode interpreters are as fast as possible.