[ILUG] Android development suggestions...

[Ivan Griffin]

it depends on what you want to do. It is quite common for apps to do heavy 
lifting in C (processor intensive) and GUI portions in Java (I don't 
think the SDK offers C+/C++ bindings for the GUI).

You can install command-line apps and access them (somewhat convolutedly, 
as /sdcard by default is noexec, so you can smuggle them in via a .apk 
file) from something like Connectbot.

You can do some degree of scripting using the "Android Scripting 
Environment" (ASE) which I believe supports Python, Perl, Lua etc.
http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/

I've come across other madmen porting Qt to Android, which would provide
a graphics library with C/C++ bindings.

In the same way that the Android kernel is not officially Linux (but is a 
forked derivative of it), Android's "Java" implementation (Dalvik) is not 
really Java in terms of the class libraries it distributes - for example 
the J2ME classes and Swing are missing.

Of course, if you root it, then you can run whatever you want. Debian, 
X11, LXDE, ... :-)

Cheers,
Ivan.



On Sat, 6 Mar 2010, Braun Brelin wrote:

> I've read this.  It seems to indicate that you can't use C for the entire
> application, only for
> "mission critical" parts of it.  Is this in fact the case?
>
> Braun
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 8:03 PM, luker_luker <linux.ul.ie at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  Please check the Android NDK
>>
>>  http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/1.5_r1/index.html
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 7:26 PM, Braun Brelin <bbrelin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> I've been leaning toward doing some Android development but I've been put
>>> off by the fact
>>> that Java seems to be the primary development language for the platform.
>>> Personally, I'd rather hit my head against a wall repeatedly than have to
>>> program in Java.
>>>
>>> I know that there is some support for C/C++ (I think) and Python but I'm
>>> not
>>> sure how extensive it is.
>>> Can anyone who's done Android programming chime in and tell me if I can
>>> develop an app in C rather than
>>> having to use Java?  Python would be even better.
>>>
>>> Additionally, can anyone recommend a good book for this subject?  I went
>>> to
>>> the usual suspects (O Reilly), but the
>>> review of their book are pretty terrible. So, can anyone recommend an
>>> alternative book to use?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Braun
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>>
>>
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