Hacker News Reader

Comment by zak_mc_kracken | Hacker News Reader

> I'm saying this because it'll be a huge benefit to Android. reply

How so?

The language has a weaker type system than Java, doesn't support exceptions and requires error checking every other line, has very poor tool support (because the compiler was not designed with IDE's in mind).

Except maybe add a few developers who refused to write code on Android because of Java, I really don't see what Go would bring to Android.

View on HN

You shouldn't be getting down-voted. The idea of anyone rewriting the entire Android Framework in Go when you can use better languages like Kotlin, Scala, Groovy, Clojure is asinine. Go will compile to Android architectures so you could do shared code in Go between iOS and Android like a C++ lib. That makes sense.

Did anyone say anything about rewriting the entire Android Framework? Nope. It was about Go becoming a first class citizen on Android. That doesn't mean it can coexist with Java for someone who needs a fancy IDE.

It already IS. You can compile Android NDK libraries with Go today. It isn't that useful because the NDK isn't hooked up with the Android framework which means you don't get lifecycle events. There was a whole Android framework written over the past decade or so in Java that abstracts this.

> That would leave you with Kotlin/Groovy/Clojure/Scala for the view layer of your Android app if you choose not use Java

> when you can use better languages like Kotlin, Scala, Groovy, Clojure is asinine

You seem to be piggybacking an aspiring JVM language (Kotlin) on top of three other alternative ones that have already made it (Scala,Groovy,Clojure). Because that trick's already been done before with them (i.e. Groovy piggybacked on the quality of Scala and Clojure), it makes your list of examples of alternative JVM languages seem disingenuous.

Sorry about that. They all have tools that make them work on Android. Kotlin is reasonable option imo. It doesn't effect app startup and runtime size is so much smaller compared to the others. Clojure Android adds 3 seconds to startup time for example. I haven't used Scala so I am not sure how nice it is for Android.

Type system strength does not correlate with language adoption. Else, nobody would use C, Python, PHP, Javascript, Perl, Ruby ; C++, C#, Java would be outsiders and almost everybody would use Ada, Haskell, OCaml.

I agree with your last sentence, however.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com