Google for Developers
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2014–2016
48:32 · 19K views · Jun 26, 2014
A Google I/O 2014 fireside chat in which members of the Android platform team answer questions about why the platform works the way it does. It is moderated by developer advocate Reto Meier.
HN cites specific moments, such as the team's stance that Java is the official language and its answers on Scala and permission-revoking.
3 comments from Hacker News
26min into the 2014 Google I/O Android fireside chat: this video Q: So I was wondering if you guys at any point considered the support -- the official support -- of the Scala programming language. I'm asking this question especially now that we all saw that Apple released Swift after 4 years of work. And I think that Swift allows for things for iOS developers that we can't do in Java with the Android SDK. So my question was: have you ever thought about it before -- the release of Swift? Have you thought about it after that? Is there any plan? Android answer 1: Well, so, I like Cocoa, but Objective-C is based on C, which is 40 years old, so I think Apple sort of had to, like, update it a bit. Umm, so, yeah [laugh], I don't know. Scala -- I don't know. Anyone want to take that? [Android team laughs] Android answer 2: [loudly] No. [room laughs, claps] Alright, seriously, it's -- Java is the programming language for Android. I don't really think there's a lot of benefit to -- the entire framework is built around the Java programming language and I don't really -- I don't think there's much benefit for us to try to support another whole -- another different language. Person from answer 1: What about Swift? [room laughs] Person from answer 2: [jokingly] I'll think about it. Person from answer 1: [mockingly] It's got optional semi-colons. Person from answer 2: You have the NDK so you can throw something there. But the NDK -- it doesn't have access to the framework, and that's kind of t
This reminds me of the recent fireside android chat at I/O where someone said something like "I need to be prepared for although I got the permission, it might not be there". ...and they said "We work on the Play Store, and uh... that's not something we have any idea about" "No, I think he's talking about the ROM's that let you take a permission away. Wanna talk about AppOps?" Everyone looks awkward. 'No'. Ok... let's quickly talk about something else instead. (watch it here. Fun times. this video )
Yes, this video - Java is the official language, that is what the team has invested into - You can use the NDK for your favorite language, but beware that you are required to use JNI anyway for Android APIs - Not possible to do any comment regarding Java 8 support. - Only use Scala for business logic, no tooling support plans