Self-compiling Android application

github.com

76 points·d99kris··5 comments

Forgive me for asking, but how does this differ in capability from, say, a WebView application that offers a) a text field, b) a button that eval()s the text, and c) stores that text such that it can be invoked again on app load?

It writes new code in the Java runtime and can therefore improve its own capabilities. It's more like a Webview app that could add features to the Webview binary itself. Webview apps cannot have self-modifying code.

>Webview apps cannot have self-modifying code.

JavaScript is eminently (almost too much so) able to modify its own running code.

It's true that it's limited to whatever APIs the WebView exposes. Then again, this thing (yours?) is limited to whatever API the OS exposes. The ultimate, I suppose, would be to have a self-modifying OS - and then your thing is limited by whatever the hardware exposes.

All applications only take input from hardware sensors and then have (screen, storage, network) side-effects. That's all a program ever is. That's Facebook and Google and WoW and Angry Birds and Wolfram Alpha, and so on. You can try to bust out of each layer (OS, JVM, Browser) but that in no sense requires "self-modifying code". Self-modificaton with a compiled language on a mobile device is a neat trick, but it's self-modification is no more or less profound than that provided by a browser, modulo performance.

Android would be a much more interesting is if the source for everything was included and could be compiled on the phone.

Skynet is alive!

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