What is the current state of D for android development?

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 07:47:56 +0100
Paulo Pinto <pjmlp at progtools.org> wrote:

> On 30.03.2013 05:58, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > On Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:45:33 +0100
> > Paulo Pinto <pjmlp at progtools.org> wrote:
> >
> >> On 28.03.2013 07:13, js.mdnq wrote:
> >>> I would like to get into writing apps for android and would like
> >>> to choose D for this if it is mature enough.
> >>>
> >>> What is the D progress on the android?
> >>>
> >>> I see that at least others are interested but not finding a ton of
> >>> information:
> >>>
> >>> http://forum.dlang.org/thread/20120204203109.26c9a80b@jpf-laptop?page=1
> >>
> >> Please note that native development in Android has a second class
> >> status.
> >>
> >> Support is only available as a means to bring "legacy" C and C++
> >> code to the platform.
> >>
> >> The few Android APIs available to languages outside the Dalvik
> >> world are actually wrappers around JNI calls.
> >>
> >
> > That's actually something that's been rolling around in my head for
> > months, and now that it's brought up again, I have to just go ahead
> > and say it:
> >
> > What...the *FUCK* is Google thinking???
> >
> > How is it *possible* that the one company in the word that's been
> > known, more than any other, for recruiting as many of the supposedly
> > best and brightest developers in the world as they possibly can,
> > portrayed by approximately...everyone in the world...as being
> > practically a developer's utopia, with nary a pointy-hair in sight,
> > and the streets paved with latte, can be so incredibly dumb as to
> > decide "Hey, let's make our system API be *JVM-only* (ok,
> > "JVM-knockoff", whatever, like it even matters) and marginalize
> > native in general, and shit all over the idea of being anything
> > more than halfway Posix"?? Even *Apple* isn't that goddamn stupid,
> > for crap's sakes, and *Apple* was never a developer's company, it
> > was run by a dicatoring *salesman*! A drugged-out fucking
> > *salesman* for fuck's sakes, and even *they* didn't botch things up
> > *that* badly!
> >
> > Not only that, but this is the same - apparently schizophrenic -
> > company that's been trying to push the *Google* **NATIVE**
> > **CLIENT**, ie NaCl!!
> >
> > [Just insert a mental image right here of Lewis Black's trademark
> > freak-out saying "What...the...FUUUCK?!?']
> >
> > Sheesh.
> >
> > Sorry, had to get it outta my system...
> >
> 
> Personally my issue is another one.
> 
> I don't mind that they use Java (the language), but I think that
> instead of having the effort of implementing Dalvik, they could
> have implemented a native code compiler instead.
> 
> This way the platform would be fully native.
> 
> This is Microsoft current approach, regardless of C++ or .NET, since
> Windows Phone 8, everything is compiled to native code.
> 

Exactly. It just makes no sense how they see such little point in
native. They've created a *real* machine that exists almost entirely to
run a *virtual* machine. WTF is the point of that, if not to
deliberately waste both hardware and developer resources? And on a
portable, too - one of the top places where efficiency is particularly
important.

> As for POSIX compatibility, it is oversold. You only have APIs for
> command line applications and daemons, and like any standard, it has
> undefined behaviors, with each vendor having a different idea what
> POSIX means.
> 
> Nowadays they could even support Go in the platform, but the Android 
> group does not seem to care that much (issue was created by me).
> 
> http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=39482
> 

I find this part particularly hilarious:

"the Go compilers only generate static executables right now. Which
means: ... - These programs *cannot* run in a Dalvik VM."

You've got the Go team which has historically been staunchly opposed to
dynamic linking, and the Android team ten miles in the opposite
direction. Classic corporate "left-hand vs right-hand" discrepancy.
Makes them sound like Sony or MS.