Scala and Android Development

There are a few obstacles to easily using Scala on Android. Namely, the Scala standard library is too large to be easily "dexed" by the Android toolchain. Using Proguard or a similar treeshaker removes unused classes, but it's a bit of a hassle to set up manually.

However, I've found that using the SBT Android plugin (https://github.com/jberkel/android-plugin) makes the entire process relatively painless. I recommend starting with that approach.

"generally easier to understand"

"Ultimately, more Scala used means more modern Android development. "

The author has a clear chip on his/her shoulder and is making statements that are pretty controversial, even within the Scala community itself.

Thinking that using a certain language automatically leads to "more modern development" (whatever that means) is pretty ludicrous in itself.

If language advocates spent less time advocating and more time actually producing the cool stuff they claim that their language enables, they might actually get heard.

> Ultimately, more Scala used means more modern Android development. One would assume that Google would have a vested interested in at least aiding the Boston Android’s project, but they have yet to send a representative to a meet-up thus far.

I find this to be a pretty naive statement. I've never once thought of Scala on Android as being anywhere near official, and I don't see why Google would jump on the chance to officially support it. Now, having a Googler show up of their own volition - that's a different matter altogether. Maybe there just aren't any interested Googlers in the area?

In fact, Mirah implementation also available: https://github.com/sattvik/decafbot/tree/master/jvm-lang/mir...

I'm excited to try Scala for Android development but haven't had the time to figure out a new build system, etc. I hope it'll eventually be integrated into Intellij IDEA.