4 ms·

Objective-C is really nice. I don't like Apple, but their development tools are actually fairly good, and the whole API in iOS is, if not necessarily a beautifu

by weland 13y ago

Objective-C is really nice. I don't like Apple, but their development tools are actually fairly good, and the whole API in iOS is, if not necessarily a beautiful piece of engineering (which is subjective), at least thoroughly-documented and easy enough to learn and use. Android is terribly documented and very messy to develop on. But yeah, it sucks that you can't do cross-platform development unless you like to be tied to a web platforms, which tends to result in inferior user experience.

AndreasFrom 13y ago
http://www.xamarin.com http://www.xamarin.com compiles C# to native apps for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.
matwood 13y ago
Your best bet on Android is to download the source and use that as your documentation.
w1ntermute 13y ago
> Android is terribly documented and very messy to develop on. I keep hearing this FUD, but I have no idea where it's coming from. I've never had any problems with the Android documentation. The most annoying part of Android development is probably Eclipse, but I'd rather have a resource intensive IDE that's cross platform than one that only runs on OS X. In fact, the Android platform has some amazing opportunities for those who are willing to look past the mainstream views on it. Because it's ignored by so many companies/developers, all you have to do is pick an iOS app that is popular and clone it - you are pretty much guaranteed to get lots of users.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "The most annoying part of Android development is probably Eclipse" Hopefully Android Studio[1] will be the solution to that problem. >> "I keep hearing this FUD, but I have no idea where it's coming from. I've never had any problems with the Android documentation." I don't think the Android documentation is bad but I find iOS documentation much better. It might just be because I'm more used to the iOS docs (5 years experience vs. 1 year on Android). [1] http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html
  - MrDOS 13y ago
    Coming from a world of Java (Java SE of no particular platform and Android), I find the iOS documentation surprisingly hard to navigate. In the Java world, it's common for documentation on a class to contain at least a page of introductory material to the class including its purpose, its function, major caveats, some example code, etc. The iOS documentation splits all of that up between Getting Started articles, the class documentation, and separately-downloadable sample code projects. It's all there if you know where to look, but it's inconveniently spread out.
    - k-mcgrady 13y ago
      Maybe it is just because I've more experience with iOS documentation that I find it superior then.
- weland 13y ago
  > I keep hearing this FUD, but I have no idea where it's coming from. I've never had any problems with the Android documentation. Let's take just one example from literally hundreds that are scattered all over the API reference alone. The delete() method in SQLiteDatabase -- arguably, a mature part of the Android API, considering it's been there ever since version 1 and is something that almost every application uses. Here: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/database/sqlite/SQLiteDatabase.html#delete(java.lang.String https://developer.android.com/reference/android/database/sql..., java.lang.String, java.lang.String[]) The method takes three arguments, but only two are documented. The description of the whereClause states that "Passing null will delete all rows", while the function description says "To remove all rows and get a count pass "1" ass the whereClause". I presume the difference between the two cases is that passing null as the whereClause will delete all rows without giving a count of how many, but that's really poor taste in describing what the function returns. This simply isn't ok. It's barely enough for internal use, where you'd probably Skype the guy who wrote it, ask for clarification, and kindly ask that they fix it when/if they have time (or you fix it yourself if possible), but this is very far away from what you want from a serious framework. Let's not even stick iOS here. Look at Qt -- which optimistically would have, what, 10% of the users Android has, and a lot fewer developers -- and their documentation is at the very least complete. Edit: > The most annoying part of Android development is probably Eclipse, but I'd rather have a resource intensive IDE that's cross platform than one that only runs on OS X It's definitely Eclipse, but in its description don't forget "unstable" and "still lacking a decent UI builder".

by weland 13y ago

AndreasFrom 13y ago

http://www.xamarin.com http://www.xamarin.com compiles C# to native apps for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

matwood 13y ago

Your best bet on Android is to download the source and use that as your documentation.

w1ntermute 13y ago

> Android is terribly documented and very messy to develop on. I keep hearing this FUD, but I have no idea where it's coming from. I've never had any problems with the Android documentation. The most annoying part of Android development is probably Eclipse, but I'd rather have a resource intensive IDE that's cross platform than one that only runs on OS X. In fact, the Android platform has some amazing opportunities for those who are willing to look past the mainstream views on it. Because it's ignored by so many companies/developers, all you have to do is pick an iOS app that is popular and clone it - you are pretty much guaranteed to get lots of users.

k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "The most annoying part of Android development is probably Eclipse" Hopefully Android Studio[1] will be the solution to that problem. >> "I keep hearing this FUD, but I have no idea where it's coming from. I've never had any problems with the Android documentation." I don't think the Android documentation is bad but I find iOS documentation much better. It might just be because I'm more used to the iOS docs (5 years experience vs. 1 year on Android). [1] http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html
- MrDOS 13y ago
  Coming from a world of Java (Java SE of no particular platform and Android), I find the iOS documentation surprisingly hard to navigate. In the Java world, it's common for documentation on a class to contain at least a page of introductory material to the class including its purpose, its function, major caveats, some example code, etc. The iOS documentation splits all of that up between Getting Started articles, the class documentation, and separately-downloadable sample code projects. It's all there if you know where to look, but it's inconveniently spread out.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    Maybe it is just because I've more experience with iOS documentation that I find it superior then.
weland 13y ago
> I keep hearing this FUD, but I have no idea where it's coming from. I've never had any problems with the Android documentation. Let's take just one example from literally hundreds that are scattered all over the API reference alone. The delete() method in SQLiteDatabase -- arguably, a mature part of the Android API, considering it's been there ever since version 1 and is something that almost every application uses. Here: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/database/sqlite/SQLiteDatabase.html#delete(java.lang.String https://developer.android.com/reference/android/database/sql..., java.lang.String, java.lang.String[]) The method takes three arguments, but only two are documented. The description of the whereClause states that "Passing null will delete all rows", while the function description says "To remove all rows and get a count pass "1" ass the whereClause". I presume the difference between the two cases is that passing null as the whereClause will delete all rows without giving a count of how many, but that's really poor taste in describing what the function returns. This simply isn't ok. It's barely enough for internal use, where you'd probably Skype the guy who wrote it, ask for clarification, and kindly ask that they fix it when/if they have time (or you fix it yourself if possible), but this is very far away from what you want from a serious framework. Let's not even stick iOS here. Look at Qt -- which optimistically would have, what, 10% of the users Android has, and a lot fewer developers -- and their documentation is at the very least complete. Edit: > The most annoying part of Android development is probably Eclipse, but I'd rather have a resource intensive IDE that's cross platform than one that only runs on OS X It's definitely Eclipse, but in its description don't forget "unstable" and "still lacking a decent UI builder".