8 ms·

Poll: Android developers, what IDE do you use?

65 points by lacker 15y ago

If you use multiple IDEs, just vote for the one you use most frequently. Thanks! Sorry if I left out your favorite.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
immad 15y ago
We have a couple of people using Textmate at Heyzap so you should add that.
- lacker 15y ago
  Just added the Textmate option - thanks for pointing it out.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
rmason 15y ago
What about Dreamweaver? If you're not a native developer the new Dreamweaver has a pretty nice environment for the JQuery Mobile/Phonegap combo.
div 15y ago
Used IntelliJ on all projects so far, but looking at using emacs + eclim for code and eclipse for some nice GUI building whenever the next project rolls around.
Xuzz 15y ago
As someone who is interested in Android, but is currently being scared off by Eclipse, does anyone know any good resources for developing for Android in something that isn't $BLOATED_JAVA_IDE? I tried vim, but the command-line builds were horribly slow, and almost all documentation and tutorials I found expected me to be using Eclipse.
- brettnak 15y ago
  I too, would definitely recommend sticking with eclipse for now. When you really understand all the different steps of the build you could switch to emacs/vim + cli tools, but since it's pretty undocumented there's no reason not to stick with eclipse and do some work while you're figuring it all out.
  - gcb 15y ago
    open a default project in eclipse and just compile. do all that the docs tell you that the ide is doing ioutside of it and compile. i did the test. eclipse version had 30 extra kb i could never explain.
- danielpal 15y ago
  Yes command-line build/deploy is horrible, the way to use vim is: - Write code in VIM - Build everything on Eclipse. Basically keep eclipse open only to build, and deploy to the smartphone. Everything else, do it in vim.
  - ajross 15y ago
    Why is command line deployment horrible? Write some scripts, copy stuff with ssh, etc... I continue to be horrified at the refusal of modern app developers to write code to help them write code.
    - ozchrisb 15y ago
      Someone already did that for us, it's called an IDE. I continue to be horrified by engineering re-write code that already exists.
      - ajross 15y ago
        Except it clearly doesn't. For the use case in question, an IDE can build a .apk and install it on a single connected device. Can you run it in the same step? What if the app has a 10MB data set and takes 8 seconds to install, can you optimize that by copying only the binary? Can you wipe the data from the host machine? How about install a known data set for a test? Install on 5 devices and run a test suite without manual intervention? Every one of these is a valuable optimization for some workflow somewhere. All of them reduce the compile/test cycle by seconds or minutes, speeding development. NONE of them are done by any IDE I'm aware of. Seriously: write code to help you write code. If you aren't doing this, you probably aren't writing good code. And if you gave that answer in an interview, I for one wouldn't hire you.
tdfx 15y ago
For people choosing vi/vim, I'd love to hear about your environment/plugins/build process.
- zzzmarcus 15y ago
  I use vim with eclim[1]. You have to have Eclipse open, headless if you choose, but you get most of the features of Eclipse right from vim. http://eclim.org/ http://eclim.org/
  - ipince 15y ago
    Wow, this is awesome, thank you so much!
hbzhang 15y ago
Eclipse 3.7. Big community
gkatsev 15y ago
I'm using Eclipse 3.5 and vim via eclim. Eclim should probably be added as an option. Since it isn't quite one or the other.
lightblade 15y ago
Same as div, used IntelliJ on all projects. I used to use Eclipse before, but found the most frustrating thing about Eclipse is how often you'll encounter plug-in conflicts. (One plug-in doesn't want to work with another plug-in, but you just happen to want use both tools)
- MetallicCloud 15y ago
  I switched to IntelliJ from Eclipse. The biggest frustration for me was waiting for auto-complete to populate on Eclipse, blocking anything else I wanted to do. After using IntelliJ for a while, there i no going back. It's more responsive all round.
arron61 15y ago
Eclipse is fine once you have the memory configured right and you turn off all the dumb validations and unnecessary checking.
- suking 15y ago
  Are there any standard tutorials on what to turn on/off? I tried eclipse and found it so damn slow and buggy I never returned - that was a while ago - maybe it's better now...
- slackerIII 15y ago
  Can you elaborate on that? I'm an eclipse newbie and using it for Android work feels like swimming in molasses.
  - spacemanaki 15y ago
    This was posted a while back, but I don't know if it's as good as you can get it. I tried some of the tricks and found Eclipse still occasionally slow and buggy. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2694840 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2694840
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- Mizza 15y ago
  This is absolutely the best answer here. I hated Vim.. until I got 12GB of RAM. Now it's just another tool. Bonus points: Install Vrapper (http://vrapper.sourceforge.net/home/ http://vrapper.sourceforge.net/home/) and get Vim keybindings. I also change the theme to get a black background and Inconsolata font.
- cellis 15y ago
  And once you configure your own keyboard shortcuts and commit them to muscle memory. I have set ctrl+] - select to the end of line ctrl+[ - select to beginning of line ctrl+d - cut current line ctrl+k - duplicate current line below ctrl+; - jump to beginning of line ctrl+' - jump to end of line ctrl+tab - switch perspective between debug and editor [1] ctrl+i - focus on console [2] ctrl+f - toggle find/replace bar About the last shortcut; I highly recommend you get a modern find feature and not the window popup eclipse ships with - http://sandipchitale.blogspot.com/2011/04/eclipse-findreplace-bar.html http://sandipchitale.blogspot.com/2011/04/eclipse-findreplac... - [1] For me this is pydev, for you could be the Android SDK ide. [2] I have a pydev python repl running in eclipse for simple checks. Using ctrl+i to focus on this console is really nice. Bonus if you customize your theme. Mine is a white text on black.
riobiobio 15y ago
Switched from Eclipse to Netbeans 7 dev. Eclipse does a better job at auto-completion for XML related stuff.
num1 15y ago
Slightly unrelated, but why does everybody insist on calling it vi(m)? I have never seen a box that used vi in lieu of vim, it seems to be a historical artifact.
- amikula 15y ago
  vi is still around, but it lacks the plugin architecture of vim. So it's highly doubtful that anyone would find it usable for writing code anyway.
- sdkmvx 15y ago
  Calling it vi is probably used here to mean anything that acts somewhat like the original vi. There are quite a few editors like that, and vim is probably the most common. > I have never seen a box that used vi in lieu of vim I'm going to guess that you mostly use Linux boxes? The BSDs use nvi, which works and act like the old Berkeley CSRG vi. If you look at more esoteric systems like Solaris, AIX, etc. , you're likely to find varying versions of vi (disclaimer: I do not know the situation in Solaris or AIX. They are simply examples of esoteric systems—I'd love to be corrected if you do know). I would not, however, recommend using anything but vim for development. nvi has its place a small text editor to get your config files in place, and vim has its place as a large programmer's text editor.
  - num1 15y ago
    Yeah I've only ever dealt with Linux, that would make sense that it exists on other OSs.
- jallmann 15y ago
  A couple boxes I SSH'd into today only had vi. vim is not always included in the standard $OS install.
- astine 15y ago
  If you use any Posix environment asside from Linux, you'll find Vi installed by default but not Vim. This includes the BSDs, Solaris, and AIX in my experience. So vanilla Vi still gets use.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
smogzer 15y ago
Anybody here developing in C++ with Qt + QDevelop + Necessitas ?
canadiancreed 15y ago
Use Eclipse Helios, mainly because my projects span multiple languages, so it just makes it easier to do one stop coding.
rreeves 15y ago
Emacs for me. Here's my setup: Emacs, DDMS + JSwat, and ant to build. I have emacs and a terminal open at all times. To build I switch over to the terminal and use ant. Sometimes I'll write a shell script to build+install+run on a phone. For directory navigation: nav - http://code.google.com/p/emacs-nav/ http://code.google.com/p/emacs-nav/ For code completion: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/JavaCompletion http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/JavaCompletion Building on the command line is simple. Type ant release or ant debug. Or ant install to build + install on phone.
- walexander 15y ago
  Emacs here, too. high five My setup is essentially Emacs, DDMS and cscope/find/grep/etc. I always find Eclipse to be too heavy. I don't do much actual UI coding though (I'm a platform guy), or I might consider it. The ADT UI tools seem to be very powerful and convenient.
  - rreeves 15y ago
    Right on. Glad to hear other people are using Emacs too. =)
st3fan 15y ago
IntelliJ IDEA. Because it is sooo much better than Eclipse.
- jwcooper 15y ago
  For those of us that haven't used IntelliJ, but have used Eclipse, could you explain further how it's better? I really don't have any issues with Eclipse, as long as I'm using a fast PC with a lot of RAM (SSD helps as well).
  - ldar15 15y ago
    It just works. I think the refactoring and language support may be better too, but that's not why I switched. I switched because eclipse is either too complex to work reliably, or I'm too stupid to understand it. Android, Appengine, maven, all just work great in IntelliJ. Whereas bog standard tomcat+maven was a daily game of potluck in eclipse.
sbochins 15y ago
I've been using Galileo. Is there a reason to upgrade Eclipse? I haven't had any problems so far. I only use Eclipse for writing Android apps and don't really see a point in upgrading unless there is something special I'm missing.
zobzu 15y ago
VIM not vi. You insensitive clod. Using pure vi as IDE is close to suicidal.
rfolstad 15y ago
I used to only use textmate because eclipse/adt was soooo slow. Since adt 12 is out and i have a brand new iMac eclipse is working just fine for me now. That said i still use ant to manually compile my releases.
- tsotha 15y ago
  Slow? What kind of hardware are you running it on? For me everything eclipse does is instant.
brianjolly 15y ago
vi(vim) / ant
OzzyB 15y ago
Textmate with Android Bundle all the way...
krhebbar 15y ago
Eclipse 3.7
rkalla 15y ago
So... this is tender ground to be treading (holy wars). I am a strong believer in your tool feeling good to you; it is the environment you create in. The better it feels, the faster and more cohesively you will work (within reason). That being said, I'm comparing Eclipse+ADT to IntelliJ. I have no opinions on alternative home-brew solutions that are a combination of editors and command line. For Android development, you'll want the following things: - Strong Java editor support - Strong Android UI support - Strong debugger support - Strong deployment/emulator integration - Support for whatever Android version you are targetting. The two IDEs in all those areas are damn near similar, except... ADT 12 just added a slew of nice, Android-specific context-sensitive content assists that are really damn nice. In addition, ADT 12 jumped the visual layout designer forward in a big way with accurate component rendering in preview as well as support for custom components[1]. I think something worth considering is that Android support is a feature, among 100 other, that the core IntelliJ team develops, support and extends. ADT is the official, Google-driven effort to develop and expand their Android tooling on the Eclipse platform. The ADT team isn't distracted by things like autocomplete support, classpath scanning, project formats, etc... all they do is develop Android tooling directly ontop of Eclipse. I would expect that the ADT tools continue to be more robust and outpace competitor implementations. I would also point out that the ADT team has some seriously fantastic developers on it; if you are the type to enjoy high level "new feature" overviews of IDEs, check out Tor Norbye and Xavier Ducrohet's presentation at Google I/O 2011 showing off a lot of the new features in ADT 12[2]. I realize up to now it has sounded like I'm an Eclipse fan, but I am just a "tools to get things done" fan. [1] http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq05KqjXTvs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq05KqjXTvs
maximilianburke 15y ago
My company mostly uses Visual Studio, but then the majority of our Android products (games) are C++, not Java.
jinushaun 15y ago
After reading all the comments, going to have to check out IntelliJ. The thing I hate most about Android development is having to use Eclipse. Most of the time, I just end up coding in TextMate and only use Eclipse for building and debugging. I just hate how Eclipse feels and it's also slow. Eclipse also sucks for Flash development, which is why I prefer FlashDevelop on Windows. It's just so much faster, and makes coding fun. Running FlashDevelop inside a VM is preferred over running FlashBuilder/Eclipse natively on the Mac.
rat 15y ago
no option for vim?(as opposed to vi?)
FargoNorth 15y ago
Other: Flash/AIR for the best results

65 points by lacker 15y ago

If you use multiple IDEs, just vote for the one you use most frequently. Thanks! Sorry if I left out your favorite.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

immad 15y ago

We have a couple of people using Textmate at Heyzap so you should add that.

lacker 15y ago
Just added the Textmate option - thanks for pointing it out.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

rmason 15y ago

What about Dreamweaver? If you're not a native developer the new Dreamweaver has a pretty nice environment for the JQuery Mobile/Phonegap combo.

div 15y ago

Used IntelliJ on all projects so far, but looking at using emacs + eclim for code and eclipse for some nice GUI building whenever the next project rolls around.

Xuzz 15y ago

As someone who is interested in Android, but is currently being scared off by Eclipse, does anyone know any good resources for developing for Android in something that isn't $BLOATED_JAVA_IDE? I tried vim, but the command-line builds were horribly slow, and almost all documentation and tutorials I found expected me to be using Eclipse.

brettnak 15y ago
I too, would definitely recommend sticking with eclipse for now. When you really understand all the different steps of the build you could switch to emacs/vim + cli tools, but since it's pretty undocumented there's no reason not to stick with eclipse and do some work while you're figuring it all out.
- gcb 15y ago
  open a default project in eclipse and just compile. do all that the docs tell you that the ide is doing ioutside of it and compile. i did the test. eclipse version had 30 extra kb i could never explain.
danielpal 15y ago
Yes command-line build/deploy is horrible, the way to use vim is: - Write code in VIM - Build everything on Eclipse. Basically keep eclipse open only to build, and deploy to the smartphone. Everything else, do it in vim.
- ajross 15y ago
  Why is command line deployment horrible? Write some scripts, copy stuff with ssh, etc... I continue to be horrified at the refusal of modern app developers to write code to help them write code.
  - ozchrisb 15y ago
    Someone already did that for us, it's called an IDE. I continue to be horrified by engineering re-write code that already exists.
    - ajross 15y ago
      Except it clearly doesn't. For the use case in question, an IDE can build a .apk and install it on a single connected device. Can you run it in the same step? What if the app has a 10MB data set and takes 8 seconds to install, can you optimize that by copying only the binary? Can you wipe the data from the host machine? How about install a known data set for a test? Install on 5 devices and run a test suite without manual intervention? Every one of these is a valuable optimization for some workflow somewhere. All of them reduce the compile/test cycle by seconds or minutes, speeding development. NONE of them are done by any IDE I'm aware of. Seriously: write code to help you write code. If you aren't doing this, you probably aren't writing good code. And if you gave that answer in an interview, I for one wouldn't hire you.

tdfx 15y ago

For people choosing vi/vim, I'd love to hear about your environment/plugins/build process.

zzzmarcus 15y ago
I use vim with eclim[1]. You have to have Eclipse open, headless if you choose, but you get most of the features of Eclipse right from vim. http://eclim.org/ http://eclim.org/
- ipince 15y ago
  Wow, this is awesome, thank you so much!

hbzhang 15y ago

Eclipse 3.7. Big community

gkatsev 15y ago

I'm using Eclipse 3.5 and vim via eclim. Eclim should probably be added as an option. Since it isn't quite one or the other.

lightblade 15y ago

Same as div, used IntelliJ on all projects. I used to use Eclipse before, but found the most frustrating thing about Eclipse is how often you'll encounter plug-in conflicts. (One plug-in doesn't want to work with another plug-in, but you just happen to want use both tools)

MetallicCloud 15y ago
I switched to IntelliJ from Eclipse. The biggest frustration for me was waiting for auto-complete to populate on Eclipse, blocking anything else I wanted to do. After using IntelliJ for a while, there i no going back. It's more responsive all round.

arron61 15y ago

Eclipse is fine once you have the memory configured right and you turn off all the dumb validations and unnecessary checking.

suking 15y ago
Are there any standard tutorials on what to turn on/off? I tried eclipse and found it so damn slow and buggy I never returned - that was a while ago - maybe it's better now...
slackerIII 15y ago
Can you elaborate on that? I'm an eclipse newbie and using it for Android work feels like swimming in molasses.
- spacemanaki 15y ago
  This was posted a while back, but I don't know if it's as good as you can get it. I tried some of the tricks and found Eclipse still occasionally slow and buggy. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2694840 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2694840
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Mizza 15y ago
This is absolutely the best answer here. I hated Vim.. until I got 12GB of RAM. Now it's just another tool. Bonus points: Install Vrapper (http://vrapper.sourceforge.net/home/ http://vrapper.sourceforge.net/home/) and get Vim keybindings. I also change the theme to get a black background and Inconsolata font.
cellis 15y ago
And once you configure your own keyboard shortcuts and commit them to muscle memory. I have set ctrl+] - select to the end of line ctrl+[ - select to beginning of line ctrl+d - cut current line ctrl+k - duplicate current line below ctrl+; - jump to beginning of line ctrl+' - jump to end of line ctrl+tab - switch perspective between debug and editor [1] ctrl+i - focus on console [2] ctrl+f - toggle find/replace bar About the last shortcut; I highly recommend you get a modern find feature and not the window popup eclipse ships with - http://sandipchitale.blogspot.com/2011/04/eclipse-findreplace-bar.html http://sandipchitale.blogspot.com/2011/04/eclipse-findreplac... - [1] For me this is pydev, for you could be the Android SDK ide. [2] I have a pydev python repl running in eclipse for simple checks. Using ctrl+i to focus on this console is really nice. Bonus if you customize your theme. Mine is a white text on black.

riobiobio 15y ago

Switched from Eclipse to Netbeans 7 dev. Eclipse does a better job at auto-completion for XML related stuff.

num1 15y ago

Slightly unrelated, but why does everybody insist on calling it vi(m)? I have never seen a box that used vi in lieu of vim, it seems to be a historical artifact.

amikula 15y ago
vi is still around, but it lacks the plugin architecture of vim. So it's highly doubtful that anyone would find it usable for writing code anyway.
sdkmvx 15y ago
Calling it vi is probably used here to mean anything that acts somewhat like the original vi. There are quite a few editors like that, and vim is probably the most common. > I have never seen a box that used vi in lieu of vim I'm going to guess that you mostly use Linux boxes? The BSDs use nvi, which works and act like the old Berkeley CSRG vi. If you look at more esoteric systems like Solaris, AIX, etc. , you're likely to find varying versions of vi (disclaimer: I do not know the situation in Solaris or AIX. They are simply examples of esoteric systems—I'd love to be corrected if you do know). I would not, however, recommend using anything but vim for development. nvi has its place a small text editor to get your config files in place, and vim has its place as a large programmer's text editor.
- num1 15y ago
  Yeah I've only ever dealt with Linux, that would make sense that it exists on other OSs.
jallmann 15y ago
A couple boxes I SSH'd into today only had vi. vim is not always included in the standard $OS install.
astine 15y ago
If you use any Posix environment asside from Linux, you'll find Vi installed by default but not Vim. This includes the BSDs, Solaris, and AIX in my experience. So vanilla Vi still gets use.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

smogzer 15y ago

Anybody here developing in C++ with Qt + QDevelop + Necessitas ?

canadiancreed 15y ago

Use Eclipse Helios, mainly because my projects span multiple languages, so it just makes it easier to do one stop coding.

rreeves 15y ago

Emacs for me. Here's my setup: Emacs, DDMS + JSwat, and ant to build. I have emacs and a terminal open at all times. To build I switch over to the terminal and use ant. Sometimes I'll write a shell script to build+install+run on a phone. For directory navigation: nav - http://code.google.com/p/emacs-nav/ http://code.google.com/p/emacs-nav/ For code completion: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/JavaCompletion http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/JavaCompletion Building on the command line is simple. Type ant release or ant debug. Or ant install to build + install on phone.

walexander 15y ago
Emacs here, too. high five My setup is essentially Emacs, DDMS and cscope/find/grep/etc. I always find Eclipse to be too heavy. I don't do much actual UI coding though (I'm a platform guy), or I might consider it. The ADT UI tools seem to be very powerful and convenient.
- rreeves 15y ago
  Right on. Glad to hear other people are using Emacs too. =)

st3fan 15y ago

IntelliJ IDEA. Because it is sooo much better than Eclipse.

jwcooper 15y ago
For those of us that haven't used IntelliJ, but have used Eclipse, could you explain further how it's better? I really don't have any issues with Eclipse, as long as I'm using a fast PC with a lot of RAM (SSD helps as well).
- ldar15 15y ago
  It just works. I think the refactoring and language support may be better too, but that's not why I switched. I switched because eclipse is either too complex to work reliably, or I'm too stupid to understand it. Android, Appengine, maven, all just work great in IntelliJ. Whereas bog standard tomcat+maven was a daily game of potluck in eclipse.

sbochins 15y ago

I've been using Galileo. Is there a reason to upgrade Eclipse? I haven't had any problems so far. I only use Eclipse for writing Android apps and don't really see a point in upgrading unless there is something special I'm missing.

zobzu 15y ago

VIM not vi. You insensitive clod. Using pure vi as IDE is close to suicidal.

rfolstad 15y ago

I used to only use textmate because eclipse/adt was soooo slow. Since adt 12 is out and i have a brand new iMac eclipse is working just fine for me now. That said i still use ant to manually compile my releases.

tsotha 15y ago
Slow? What kind of hardware are you running it on? For me everything eclipse does is instant.

brianjolly 15y ago

vi(vim) / ant

OzzyB 15y ago

Textmate with Android Bundle all the way...

krhebbar 15y ago

Eclipse 3.7

rkalla 15y ago

So... this is tender ground to be treading (holy wars). I am a strong believer in your tool feeling good to you; it is the environment you create in. The better it feels, the faster and more cohesively you will work (within reason). That being said, I'm comparing Eclipse+ADT to IntelliJ. I have no opinions on alternative home-brew solutions that are a combination of editors and command line. For Android development, you'll want the following things: - Strong Java editor support - Strong Android UI support - Strong debugger support - Strong deployment/emulator integration - Support for whatever Android version you are targetting. The two IDEs in all those areas are damn near similar, except... ADT 12 just added a slew of nice, Android-specific context-sensitive content assists that are really damn nice. In addition, ADT 12 jumped the visual layout designer forward in a big way with accurate component rendering in preview as well as support for custom components[1]. I think something worth considering is that Android support is a feature, among 100 other, that the core IntelliJ team develops, support and extends. ADT is the official, Google-driven effort to develop and expand their Android tooling on the Eclipse platform. The ADT team isn't distracted by things like autocomplete support, classpath scanning, project formats, etc... all they do is develop Android tooling directly ontop of Eclipse. I would expect that the ADT tools continue to be more robust and outpace competitor implementations. I would also point out that the ADT team has some seriously fantastic developers on it; if you are the type to enjoy high level "new feature" overviews of IDEs, check out Tor Norbye and Xavier Ducrohet's presentation at Google I/O 2011 showing off a lot of the new features in ADT 12[2]. I realize up to now it has sounded like I'm an Eclipse fan, but I am just a "tools to get things done" fan. [1] http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq05KqjXTvs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq05KqjXTvs

maximilianburke 15y ago

My company mostly uses Visual Studio, but then the majority of our Android products (games) are C++, not Java.

jinushaun 15y ago

After reading all the comments, going to have to check out IntelliJ. The thing I hate most about Android development is having to use Eclipse. Most of the time, I just end up coding in TextMate and only use Eclipse for building and debugging. I just hate how Eclipse feels and it's also slow. Eclipse also sucks for Flash development, which is why I prefer FlashDevelop on Windows. It's just so much faster, and makes coding fun. Running FlashDevelop inside a VM is preferred over running FlashBuilder/Eclipse natively on the Mac.

rat 15y ago

no option for vim?(as opposed to vi?)

FargoNorth 15y ago

Other: Flash/AIR for the best results