Android, from Eclipse to IDEA?

[Fabrizio Giudici]

http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html

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Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect @ Tidalwave s.a.s.
"We make Java work. Everywhere."
http://tidalwave.it/fabrizio/blog - fabrizio...@tidalwave.it

[Graham Allan]

Saw this mentioned on twitter a couple of times. The impression seemed to be 'Google deserting Eclipse in favour of IntelliJ'. The link doesn't seem to imply that at all. It implies 'Android, from Eclipse to Eclipse _and_ IDEA'. There are still instructions on getting the ADT bundle for Eclipse.

Did something else surface at Google I/O that would suggest Android tools for Eclipse are being abandoned?

http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html

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[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Thu, 16 May 2013 11:27:50 +0200, Graham Allan <grundl...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Saw this mentioned on twitter a couple of times. The impression seemed to
> be 'Google deserting Eclipse in favour of IntelliJ'. The link doesn't
> seem
> to imply that at all. It implies 'Android, from Eclipse to Eclipse _and_
> IDEA'. There are still instructions on getting the ADT bundle for
> Eclipse.
>
> Did something else surface at Google I/O that would suggest Android tools
> for Eclipse are being abandoned?

I decided not to comment anything, because I'm asking, not suggesting a
trend, but I see that the mere subject was enough to be interpreted as an
opinion :-)

Seriously, as I can't attend Google I/O, this seems to be the better place
to have an informed discussion. My starting point is that it's quite
strange for a steward to explicitly support more than one IDE, being
Oracle a one-of-its-kind case because the IDE multiplicity comes out of
heritage. I also have some more points, but they are merely pre-judices at
this stage, so I'd like to first hear from others (also, so far I didn't
have a chance to see more of the new IDEA Android IDE, other than the
screenshot).

[Graham Allan]

On 16 May 2013 10:38, Fabrizio Giudici <Fabrizio...@tidalwave.it> wrote:

I decided not to comment anything, because I'm asking, not suggesting a trend, but I see that the mere subject was enough to be interpreted as an opinion :-)

Apologies, I transplanted some of my own interpretations from the recent tweets of others onto your post. 

I'm not in the Android space, so don't keep up to date, but I was more surprised that IntelliJ _wasn't_ supported. Google went to such lengths to leverage the existing Java developer base, supporting multiple IDEs seems like an obvious strategy to attract more developers.

I pretty much don't have a dog in the fight, just curious of some of the reactions I've seen (not yours ;-)).

~ Graham A

[Mike Wolfson]

I spoke directly with Xavier Durouchet (sic), and asked if this means they are moving to Eclipse (first question in 'What's new in the Android SDK" talk from IO13). 

It is clear, that they are NOT moving away from Eclipse, but find the JetBrains architecture easier to customize in the ways they want (in particular, the direct Gradle implementation was one of the things he particularly called, and the xml next to visual layout).

For now, and the immediate future, Eclipse is still the supported Platform.  Android Studio is Preview (ie. Alpha).  Don't forget where some other tools they demoed during the keynote have gone (ie. Wave, NexusQ, ).  The ADT Eclipse tools are very stable, and used by many people, and documented - it wouldn't make sense to abandon that for a multitude of reasons.

I am particularly interested, in that I am just finishing a book on the ADT (out in the next 2 months), so was a little worried about major re-writes ;-).  Turns out Android Studio is just another direction, and not the abandonment of Eclipse.  I will write a chapter, but clearly, it's too early for anything more comprehensive (maybe in the second printing).

The thing is, that the tools themselves are open-source, and designed to be easy to port.  Support for InteliJ has existed for a long time already.  Many of the things they demoed, are available in the standard ADT now (in particular, the visual editor preview stuff for multiple screen sizes, etc).  I think the core tools will be the same between platforms, with certain optimizations (regarding workflow in particular) will make each IDE unique in it's own way.

I like Eclipse, and have been using it for a long time.  I am not sure I am ready to switch to an entirely new IDE quite yet.  I am excited to play with it a bit, as it looks to have some nice optimizations.

Mike
http://www.amazon.com/Android-Developer-Tools-Essentials-Zipalign/dp/1449328210

[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Sun, 19 May 2013 20:52:08 +0200, Mike Wolfson <mwol...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> It is clear, that they are NOT moving away from Eclipse, but find the
> JetBrains architecture easier to customize in the ways they want (in
> particular, the direct Gradle implementation was one of the things he
> particularly called, and the xml next to visual layout).

Thanks for the info, but your answer still leaves me a doubt. If they like
IDEA more than Eclipse, I assume this means that they can do with IDEA
better things than with Eclipse... right?

[Michael Wolfson]

I do think there are frustrations with Eclipse architecture (I am not sure of the details).

For instance, Xavier did specifically mention the Gradle integration with InteliJ was something they really liked - but also mentioned to me, that they will be integrating it into Eclipse soon (probably just takes more work).

I could see some things that are easier to implement in InteliJ never making it into Eclipse, or taking longer to migrate there.  Perhaps this will be a more dynamic platform, and Eclipse will be the "Old Workhorse" that is stable, and doesn't change as rapidly. 

On a side but related subject - Xavier did say that Ant will be deprecated as a build tool, and Gradle is the direction forward.   The Gradle tool looks super awesome, and a perfect fit for Android (especially the way you can create multiple build types by creating distinct folders for each - ie. like using resource qualifiers for layouts).  The new build tools is very welcome, I have done Maven, which was fairly painful, and Ant, which is limited, but easy.  Looks like the new tool is the perfect combo of both.

-M

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[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Sun, 19 May 2013 21:20:41 +0200, Michael Wolfson <mwol...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I do think there are frustrations with Eclipse architecture (I am not
> sure
> of the details).

I perfectly understand this and it was one point that I presumed was
behind the move...

> For instance, Xavier did specifically mention the Gradle integration with
> InteliJ was something they really liked - but also mentioned to me, that
> they will be integrating it into Eclipse soon (probably just takes more
> work).

.. clear, but if they still want to support Eclipse, the frustrations are
there to stay... right?

> I could see some things that are easier to implement in InteliJ never
> making it into Eclipse, or taking longer to migrate there. Perhaps this
> will be a more dynamic platform, and Eclipse will be the "Old Workhorse"
> that is stable, and doesn't change as rapidly.

Ok, this makes sense, but it means that the innovation will mostly happen
on Idea, which means that in one or two years there will be no reasons for
using Eclipse. From the few pieces of information I'm reading here, I'd
dare to say Android is actually abandoning Eclipse, with Google not
wanting to explicitly say that, but letting it happen.

> On a side but related subject - Xavier did say that Ant will be
> deprecated
> as a build tool, and Gradle is the direction forward. The Gradle tool
> looks super awesome, and a perfect fit for Android (especially the way
> you
> can create multiple build types by creating distinct folders for each -
> ie.
> like using resource qualifiers for layouts). The new build tools is very
> welcome, I have done Maven, which was fairly painful, and Ant, which is
> limited, but easy. Looks like the new tool is the perfect combo of both.

The few things that I understand about Gradle tell me that for me it's a
step backward from Maven, which I like a lot. But I understand that Maven
isn't good for single programmers that want to quickly learn the Android
platform, possibly with little or scarce Java experience, so from this
point of view I understand Gradle as forward move.

[Cédric Beust ♔]

On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Mike Wolfson <mwol...@gmail.com> wrote:

I spoke directly with Xavier Durouchet (sic)

Ducrohet.

-- 

Cédric