5 ms·

Is this not possible in Java on Android?

by sosuke 11y ago

tosh 11y ago
There are people who don't enjoy building stuff in Java and want an alternative (like Dart). There are also people who don't want to learn (or like) the existing Android APIs. Sky opens the door to use Dart on the server side, on the web as well as for highly performant native apps for Android (and eventually for other platforms like iOS).
- sosuke 11y ago
  That makes more sense to me, Sky looks pretty cool.
- esteer 11y ago
  > Sky opens the door to use Dart on the server side, on the web as well as for highly performant native apps for Android (and eventually for other platforms like iOS). What's wrong with using GWT and J2ObjC other than the fact that there are people who don't enjoy building stuff in Java?
  - skybrian 11y ago
    For one thing, the edit-build-test cycle for mobile devices is rather slow, so there's room for improvement.
  - tosh 11y ago
    I don't see anything 'wrong' with GWT, just as there is nothing inherently wrong with writing iOS apps using Ruby (http://www.rubymotion.com/ http://www.rubymotion.com/). For example the Inbox team did a fantastic job re bringing a great user experience to multiple platforms and I guess they were glad that they could use one language throughout instead of having to jump between various tools and idioms (see http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/going-under-hood-of-inbox.html http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/going-under-hood-of-in...). It's just that like you mentioned people do have different preferences when it comes to languages/tools/ecosystems. That's all. There are people building web services using PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, Haskell, Elixir, Erlang, Go, C++, JavaScript, Dart. Why not also have this choice on mobile?
  - raverbashing 11y ago
    Oh GWT? I think not even Google uses it as much http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Web_Toolkit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Web_Toolkit Sure, let me add another layer of abstraction because some people only know Java...
- the8472 11y ago
  If they just don't like the language, why not just run a different language on the JVM?
  - andybak 11y ago
    Android doesn't use the JVM
  - espadrine 11y ago
    They don't dislike the language (some of them even worked on the JVM's major implementation, HotSpot). They are building a competing VM, DartVM. Because of the way Dart (and its VM, built for its needs) was designed, they believe they can eventually outperform Java on the JVM, all the while providing a fully dynamic programming language, because of smart runtime optimizations. If they win this bet, they'll have made an acceptable replacement for the way Android apps are built. Then, things would get inversed, and developers wishing to keep using Java would use a Java-to-Dart compiler (instead of a Java-to-JVM bytecode one).

Is this not possible in Java on Android?

by sosuke 11y ago

Is this not possible in Java on Android?

tosh 11y ago

There are people who don't enjoy building stuff in Java and want an alternative (like Dart). There are also people who don't want to learn (or like) the existing Android APIs. Sky opens the door to use Dart on the server side, on the web as well as for highly performant native apps for Android (and eventually for other platforms like iOS).

sosuke 11y ago
That makes more sense to me, Sky looks pretty cool.
esteer 11y ago
> Sky opens the door to use Dart on the server side, on the web as well as for highly performant native apps for Android (and eventually for other platforms like iOS). What's wrong with using GWT and J2ObjC other than the fact that there are people who don't enjoy building stuff in Java?
- skybrian 11y ago
  For one thing, the edit-build-test cycle for mobile devices is rather slow, so there's room for improvement.
- tosh 11y ago
  I don't see anything 'wrong' with GWT, just as there is nothing inherently wrong with writing iOS apps using Ruby (http://www.rubymotion.com/ http://www.rubymotion.com/). For example the Inbox team did a fantastic job re bringing a great user experience to multiple platforms and I guess they were glad that they could use one language throughout instead of having to jump between various tools and idioms (see http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/going-under-hood-of-inbox.html http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/going-under-hood-of-in...). It's just that like you mentioned people do have different preferences when it comes to languages/tools/ecosystems. That's all. There are people building web services using PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, Haskell, Elixir, Erlang, Go, C++, JavaScript, Dart. Why not also have this choice on mobile?
- raverbashing 11y ago
  Oh GWT? I think not even Google uses it as much http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Web_Toolkit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Web_Toolkit Sure, let me add another layer of abstraction because some people only know Java...
the8472 11y ago
If they just don't like the language, why not just run a different language on the JVM?
- andybak 11y ago
  Android doesn't use the JVM
- espadrine 11y ago
  They don't dislike the language (some of them even worked on the JVM's major implementation, HotSpot). They are building a competing VM, DartVM. Because of the way Dart (and its VM, built for its needs) was designed, they believe they can eventually outperform Java on the JVM, all the while providing a fully dynamic programming language, because of smart runtime optimizations. If they win this bet, they'll have made an acceptable replacement for the way Android apps are built. Then, things would get inversed, and developers wishing to keep using Java would use a Java-to-Dart compiler (instead of a Java-to-JVM bytecode one).