Initial impressions of Android Studio

Posted by George Hovey-2 on
URL: http://ibm-netrexx.48.s1.nabble.com/Initial-impressions-of-Android-Studio-tp4027264.html

Bliss.  Three days of reading Android docs and searching for the answer to a problem produced

   Hello World (from NetRexx)

using Google's Android Studio ("AS", beta 0.8.9).  For the benefit of those wanting to come to grips with Android Studio but fearing the worst (e.g. me), I'll briefly describe my experience.

Android Studio is a custom version of IntelliJ IDEA's Android plugin.  Why not use the original?  I don't know, but I can see Google's version seems to be removing any trace of extraneous elements in order to improve the user experience.  There is a cost.  Like all of Google's Android development efforts this proceeds at a blistering pace and the documentation is always behind.  So you are often forced to read IntelliJ's docs which requires some reading between the lines.

This happened when I attempted to tell AS about NetRexxR.jar.  The docs unhelpfully discussed "remote and local binary dependencies" which sounded like jars but seemed to have no precise definitions.   I could see a couple of plausible places to put it, but my naive attempts produced results from the build like "unable to assemble NetRexxR.jar" (huh?).  This turned out to be a popular question at StackOverflow, and produced several complicated and wrong answers (as did AS), and one right one which I'll recite in case the docs haven't caught up by the time you try this:

       -- Copy jar to libs directory in the app
       -- Refresh project so libs show up in the structure
       -- Expand libs and right click on the jar
       -- Select "Add as Library"

As an example of the endless felicitous touches in AS, you can right click on any item in the build tree and produce an Explorer window (under Windows) of its containing directory.  This makes moving NetRexx's .java files to their proper place in AS simple.

In case you have no preconceived notions about work flow I'll describe mine, which is low-tech but starkly simple.  I work under Windows and use the VIRTUAWIN multiple desktop program to reduce clutter; a single keystroke moves to any of 9 desktops.   I use three adjacent desktops for Android development.  One contains docs, another Android Studio, and the last jEdit and a command window.  For the moment I am keeping my .nrx sources outside of AS.  A build cycle is:

   1) Edit in jEdit.
   2) Compile in the command window
      -- use the ugly form of .java output so line numbers remain in sync
      -- output NetRexxC messages to a file which is constantly visible in
         jEdit.
   3) Move the .java to AS with a script
   4) Build.
  
Note that AS and jEdit are not coupled in any way, which I regard as a plus.

My initial impression of Android Studio is very favorable: fit and finish are outstanding and it appears to be the result of some very innovative thinking about the build process.

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