[ale] anybody doing android development and how?

Tue Feb 19 12:35:55 EST 2013

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Charles Shapiro <hooterpincher at gmail.com>wrote:

> Pfaugh. The command line is still the quickest and most flexible way to
> write software or solve problems.  I have had experiences with several
> 'graphical' computer languages -- most recently FME, (
> http://www.safe.com/ )  and Pentaho ( http://www.pentaho.com/  ).  Both
> of these are boxes-and-strings 'languages' which work well for toy problems
> but have difficulty scaling to actual production.  Both rely heavily on
> property lists in their various nodes, which means that you're still
> 'typing tens of thousands of cryptic characters and strings into a
> keyboard' .  But in those systems you can't actually manipulate that text
> easily, 'cause it's scattered inside a complicated interface which hides it
> from you.
>
> The great advantage of a simple interface which allows you to type words
> in directly is that nobody has made decisions for you about the problems
> you're trying to solve.  You get complete control of the machine to express
> *your* ideas about how your solution is going to look and what you're
> trying to do.  In  40 years of general use, the Unix shell environment has
> proven that Kernighan, Thompson, and Ritchie got a lot of stuff right.  The
> text shell with small tools which do simple things and a generalized way to
> hook them together has persisted from the 3B2 right through to the latest
> Smartphones.
>
> -- CHS
>
>
> To add to this, I agree fully with Charles. Every IDE I've ever seen is an
attempt to dumb down a complicated process so a monkey can write code. Yes,
100 monkeys can type a Shakespeare sonnet given enough time but they never
really understand what they've done. But monkeys writing code that is going
to run on 100 million PCs around the world calls for a rethinking of that
process.

There is ample evidence of IDEs forcing programming conventions that cause
bad code to exist (Lotus Notes actually worked before IBM rewrote it using
Eclipse).

If someone _really_ has to use a toolset to write code, learn emacs or vim.
Both have abilities to assist the heavy programmer that still manage to not
force stupid process, or worse - bad code - on the programming process. I'm
not an emacs user (and don't even play one on TV!) but I've poked around it
a bit. Both emacs and vim have stuff like folding and block navigation and
manipulation that BECAUSE it's command line act like force multipliers for
adept users. Processes that take 10-20 mouse clicks and 1-2 minutes are
done with 4-5 keystrokes and take scant seconds.

All of the other "competing" computing platforms are still playing catchup
to the *NIX methods.

>
> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 5:45 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <
> atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi David,
>>
>> Thanks for the info.  I'm going to look into those resources when I can.
>>  It's good to know that there are some alternatives out there to the Java /
>> Eclipse route.
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> Thanks to the others who've responded to this thread.  I'll have to be
>> reviewing the other posts and responding to some as the week progresses.
>>
>> I wanted to pass along the following.  Here are two AppInventor books
>> that look pretty cool.  It looks like you can do some pretty complex
>> development with it after all.
>>
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/App-Inventor-Create-Your-Android/dp/1449397484/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1361226155&sr=1-1
>>
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/App-Inventor-Android-Experience-Required/dp/1119991331/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361216050&sr=8-1
>>
>> I bought the first book, which is by O'Reilly.  It looks very cool.  It
>> has some neat tutorial projects you can do.
>>
>> I'm not sure whether AppInventor has all the same features now that
>> Google abandoned it.  MIT is running it now.  I haven't done any research
>> other than looking at these books.
>>
>> For what it's worth, I think programming should be done this way.
>>  Visually.  Not by typing tens of thousands of cryptic characters and
>> strings into a keyboard.  And, I'm a pretty good typist.
>>
>> I'm reminded of the neat scene in the Star Trek IV movie where Scotty and
>> Bones are in the plastics factory and Scotty wants to enter a chemical
>> formula into an old Mac computer.  He picks up the mouse and starts
>> speaking to it.  The manager of the plant says "Just use the keyboard."
>>  Scotty says "A keyboard, how quaint."
>>
>> I'm afraid I have to agree.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Ron
>>
>>
>> David Tomaschik <david at systemoverlord.com> wrote:
>>
>> >There's "Scripting Layer For Android, or SL4A":
>> >https://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/, but I can't imagine
>> >trying to
>> >commercialize an app written on that.  There's the Android NDK which
>> >allows
>> >you to write C/C++ that's then linked into the Dalvik VM, so you still
>> >need
>> >a small Java app to load the NDK code (plus then you need a separate
>> >NDK
>> >app for each architecture.)
>> >
>> >AppInventor is pretty cool, but you'll still need more work to do
>> >complex
>> >things.
>> >
>> >David
>> >
>> >
>> >On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 2:27 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <
>> >atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> I'm considering doing some android development, mainly for hobby
>> >level
>> >> playing with my tablet, as opposed to commercialization.  If I came
>> >up with
>> >> something really cool, I wouldn't mind commercializing it.
>> >>
>> >> I don't necessarily want to learn Java for a few different reasons
>> >related
>> >> to security, kludgy code, etc.  So, I have the following questions?
>> >>
>> >> A) Is anyone developing for Android in a language other than Java?
>> >If so,
>> >> how do you like it?
>> >>
>> >> B) Has anyone tried AppInventor, formerly from Google and now MIT?
>> >If so,
>> >> how do you like it?
>> >>
>> >> C) Is there any viable alternative to Java for developing and
>> >> commercializing moderately complex android apps?  Think apps like, a
>> >text
>> >> editor, a contact database, a basic music player, a movie database, a
>> >> metric units converter, etc.
>> >>
>> >> Sincerely,
>> >>
>> >> Ron
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >>
>> >> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9
>> >Mail.
>> >> Please excuse my potential brevity.
>> >>
>> >> (To whom it may concern.  My email address has changed.  Replying to
>> >former
>> >> messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the
>> >wrong
>> >> address.  Please send all personal correspondence to the new
>> >address.)
>> >>
>> >> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want
>> >to
>> >> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate
>> >energy
>> >> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very
>> >> quickly.)
>> >>
>> >> Ron Frazier
>> >> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
>> >> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >--
>> >David Tomaschik
>> >OpenPGP: 0x5DEA789B
>> >http://systemoverlord.com
>> >david at systemoverlord.com
>> >
>> >
>> >------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
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>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9
>> Mail.
>> Please excuse my potential brevity.
>>
>> (To whom it may concern.  My email address has changed.  Replying to
>> former
>> messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the wrong
>> address.  Please send all personal correspondence to the new address.)
>>
>> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
>> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
>> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very
>> quickly.)
>>
>> Ron Frazier
>> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
>> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Ale mailing list
>> Ale at ale.org
>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>>
>
>
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