Android Cookbook

Chapter 20. Other Programming Languages and Frameworks

20.1. Introduction: Other Programming Languages

Ian Darwin

Discussion

Developing new programming languages is a constant process in this industry. Several new (or not-so-new) languages have become popular recently: Scheme, Erlang, Scala, Clojure, Groovy, C#, F#, and more. While the Apple approach on the iPhone has been to mandate use of Objective-C and to ban (at least initially, it has been relaxed somewhat recently) use of other languages, particularly JVM-style translated languages, Android positively encourages the use of many languages. You can write your app in pure Java using the SDK, of course—that’s the subject of most of the rest of the book. You can mix some C/C++ code into Java using native code (see Recipe 20.3), using Android’s NDK. People have made most of the major compiled languages work, especially (but not exclusively) the JVM-based ones. You can write using a variety of scripting languages such as Perl, Python, and Ruby (see Recipe 20.4). And there’s more...

If you want a very high-level, drag-and-drop development process, look at Android App Inventor, a Google-originated environment for building applications easily using the drag-and-drop metaphor and “Blocks” that snap together. We have a recipe in progress. App Inventor is now maintained at MIT; you can also visit the official MIT site.

If you are a web developer used to working your magic in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, there is a route for you to become an ...