Google launches virtual plastic pal who's fun to be with Google has launched a preview of version 2.0 of Android Studio, the Alphabet subsidiary's development tool for Android apps. Google's aims for this release were to create a faster, prettier-and-therefore-more-pleasant-to-use tool. The revised development tool's headline features therefore include something called “instant run …
Devs need only make a change to code and run it to see alterations reflected in an on-screen emulator. That's apparently a rather swifter and more elegant arrangement than was offered in previous versions of the tool.
That's sounds pretty similar to how it already was but it certainly wasn't quick so good on them if they've improved the speed,
The Android emulator in 1.x was okay for normal apps but virtually unusable for OpenGL development. Even if you turned on host GPU acceleration it still sucked. So if they're addressing this it should make a huge difference. Personally I found the easiest way to develop was to build the app for the desktop (easy enough with libgdx) and debug it there and only switch to Android (emulation) once I knew it's more or less working.
I have no love at all for IntelliJ. I use it at work, I use it in the Android Studio and I'm fairly proficient with it. But the build / debug cycle is painful compared to Eclipse. In Eclipse you could just hit Run / Debug and it would instantly Run or Debug, and even in-place edit code. In Android Studio / IntelliJ it prefers to farm out the build to an external builder like Gradle. Gradle takes so long to start you have to run it in daemon mode and even then it might taken 10-20 seconds to build / run something which is virtually instant in Eclipse. And if you edit the Gradle script you have to resync everything. That isn't to say I hate Gradle for other build lifecycle tasks but for trivial Run / Debug iterations it's a pain.
Remember you can always go "Stick your head in a pig" :D
All together now... A one, two, a one, two, three, four.. da da d da da da...
Share and Enjoy
Share and Enjoy
Journey through life
With a plastic boy
Or Girl by your side
Let your pal be your guide
And when it breaks down
Or starts to annoy
Or grinds when it moves
And gives you no joy
Cos it's eaten your hat
Or had sex with your cat
Bled oil on your floor
Or ripped off your door
You get to the point
You can't stand any more
Bring it to us, we won't give a fig
We'll tell you, 'Go stick your head in a pig'.
Google's whole business model is "Share and Enjoy" - we share our personal data, friends, illicit habits, souls etc, and they enjoy the advertising revenue. They also have cybernetic cars, which will inevitably develop real people personalities. The final move to Sirius, for offshore tax purposes, is only a matter of time.
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