[ale] anybody doing android development and how?

[Byron Jeff]

On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 04:17:46PM -0800, David Tomaschik wrote:
> 
>    There's "Scripting Layer For Android, or
>    SL4A": [1]https://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/, but I can't imagine
>    trying to commercialize an app written on that.

There's no particular reason why it cannot be done. SL4A is middleware that
interfaces scripting languages such as Python, Perl, PHP, Lua, and
Javascript to the underlaying Android System via Java facades and JSON for
data transfer. It has UIs including dialog based screens, webview
interfaces, and a more recently added Full Screen UI which uses standard
Android screen layouts.  While by default it requires installing the development
environment and language of choice in order to get to work, there is a
working Eclipse packaging system that packages SL4A, the target language,
and the script into a standard APK that can be deployed normally.

I find it works well as an application sketchpad because it supresses the
need to declare all the support infrastructure to get things going. In
Python, simply importing the Android module and declaring an Android object
is all that's required to gain access to all the facades. Plus all of
standard Python is there to boot.

It isn't perfect by any means. I've complained about the lacking broadcast
intent capture/dispatch interface for a while now. I ended up writing my
own in Java that captures certain broadcast intents and fires off script
coupled to the intent. Also recently I found that there isn't sufficient
permission to access content providers such as the calendar.

But it can certainly handle small tasks, and serve as a sketchpad for
larger, more complex ones.

BAJ

>  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)
>    <[2]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
>      [3]770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
>      linuxdude AT [4]techstarship.com
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>    --
>    David Tomaschik
>    OpenPGP: 0x5DEA789B
>    [8]http://systemoverlord.com
>    [9]david at systemoverlord.com
> 
> References
> 
>    1. https://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/
>    2. mailto:atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com
>    3. tel:770-205-9422
>    4. http://techstarship.com/
>    5. mailto:Ale at ale.org
>    6. http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>    7. http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>    8. http://systemoverlord.com/
>    9. mailto:david at systemoverlord.com

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-- 
Byron A. Jeff
Chair: Department of Computer Science and Information Technology
College of Information and Mathematical Sciences
Clayton State University
http://faculty.clayton.edu/bjeff