Android Studio and Windows 10 TP thoughts
Well, I bitched about it in the past, but it is here. An "official" IDE from Google for Android development.
I griped in the past about the tooling for Android being sub-par, largely because they were embedded in someone else's IDE. Granted, Android Studio is only a half step up from that. They've taken an existing IDE and basically made it their own. So, instead of being a plug-in, they are now a modification of someone else's platform.
Frankly, I still find UI development on Android absolutely archaic compared to .Net and between that and my prior experiences I probably won't find myself going back to dabble in Android dev for a long time still.
Since I haven't actually looked into what Android studio offers I can't say much here, but I find this amusingly like what happened with Java, except I imagine that this time Google was smart enough to either buy the company or ensure it didn't have any licensing that could bite it in the butt later. The similarities depend on whether or not Google's IDE supports more than just writing code for Android. If it does support coding for all of the same languages, IntelliJ could see almost its entire user base "lost" to Android Studio.
The reasoning would be the same for what happened to Java. Java skills could be transferred to Android, but Android provided profitability for developers. So, Java developers became Android developers. By which I mean, they stopped producing code that would run on a JVM, thus effectively ruining Java for Oracle/Sun.
Same goes here. If Android Studio is able to do everything that IntelliJ does, people will gradually switch wholesale to Android Studio. People want to write code for popular platforms and make money. Android Studio will likely, over time, provide the best possible Android development platform (as it is 1st party maintained). Over time the IntelliJ user base will diminish and further investment in the software will lose all merit and meaning.
This is actually part of the problem with Google. Though saying it is their "fault" is possibly a stretch. Historically, open source projects that became popular were never superseded. Most "ports" typically fixed a bug or two or slightly altered a very small percentage of the code for personal use. Some fixes made it back into the main project, and anyone contributing lots of changes typically became a part of the official team over time. There was little or no value in "taking" someone's open source work and trying to re-brand it, etc.... As a result, the open source community really was a community. They worked together, generally knew each other etc...
What Google changed, is that thanks to their size, they are able to take existing open source projects, change and rebrand and virtually overnight become more popular than what they started from. Ideologically, there is really nothing wrong with this if you are truly all about open source.
But, realistically, what generally happens is that if your project picks up enough, it becomes a business. You need to dedicate time to it to keep up with demands/expectations. You make enough money on contributions to dedicate yourself or a resource (or multiple resources) to having a full-time job working on what was once a simple community contribution. Once you're invested in it to that degree, if someone comes along and takes that away, they've taken your livelihood. And they've done it with your permission.
This hasn't happened to me or anyone I know... but I would see it as a betrayal. My open source software turned against and by a company using it (indirectly) to drive profits.
Ranted on that long enough. Now to slam Microsoft.
I was in the Technical Preview on my old tablet for a while. But one day I grew fed up, reinstalled Windows 8 and gave the tablet away. The last bit wasn't motivated by the tech preview... it just happened. My problem with the preview was simple, notifications went up on a personal account on Twitter, each new build was increasingly unstable and it is too easy to sign up for. I'll stress right now that my issue is all 3 combined, not each one individually.
All 3 are important together because ease of access means a lot of non-technical people will have access to it. Rampant instability will mean increased need for support and combined with the non-technical user base it will mean an even bigger increase in that need. Post the information to a Twitter account is the least intuitive possible means of conveying important information... except if that Twitter account were not even a generic Microsoft one or one for the Tech Preview... AND IT ISN'T!!!!!
How bad the situation is became clear today. They have a bug that they have a fix for, but the fix can't be installed if Office is installed. And to top it off, they simply decided that it was fine to leave it that way. I don't follow Gabe Aul, but thankfully, were I still running the Tech Preview I follow enough people who do that the posts got retweeted into my feed by others.
This is Alpha software effectively, so, such laborious work-arounds really aren't all that terrible. But, given the potential size and intelligence of the install base, these issues and their work arounds should be delivered directly to the OS.
Alternatively, if access to the preview were substantially limited or required jumping through hoops you could ensure that those jumping through the hoops knew where to find the necessary support information.
Or they slow down the release cadence and just acknowledge that their current velocity is compromising the stability of builds and fixes by far too much.
Literally, eliminate any one of the three factors I talked about and I'd shut up. I don't care about any of them individually. This is just bush league non-sense. It is exacerbated by just how stable the first preview build was (which was rock solid). That would have been the secret 4th option. Intentionally release the buggiest build possible to start so that reviewers, etc... help stop people from onboarding unless they are brave.
I griped in the past about the tooling for Android being sub-par, largely because they were embedded in someone else's IDE. Granted, Android Studio is only a half step up from that. They've taken an existing IDE and basically made it their own. So, instead of being a plug-in, they are now a modification of someone else's platform.
Frankly, I still find UI development on Android absolutely archaic compared to .Net and between that and my prior experiences I probably won't find myself going back to dabble in Android dev for a long time still.
Since I haven't actually looked into what Android studio offers I can't say much here, but I find this amusingly like what happened with Java, except I imagine that this time Google was smart enough to either buy the company or ensure it didn't have any licensing that could bite it in the butt later. The similarities depend on whether or not Google's IDE supports more than just writing code for Android. If it does support coding for all of the same languages, IntelliJ could see almost its entire user base "lost" to Android Studio.
The reasoning would be the same for what happened to Java. Java skills could be transferred to Android, but Android provided profitability for developers. So, Java developers became Android developers. By which I mean, they stopped producing code that would run on a JVM, thus effectively ruining Java for Oracle/Sun.
Same goes here. If Android Studio is able to do everything that IntelliJ does, people will gradually switch wholesale to Android Studio. People want to write code for popular platforms and make money. Android Studio will likely, over time, provide the best possible Android development platform (as it is 1st party maintained). Over time the IntelliJ user base will diminish and further investment in the software will lose all merit and meaning.
This is actually part of the problem with Google. Though saying it is their "fault" is possibly a stretch. Historically, open source projects that became popular were never superseded. Most "ports" typically fixed a bug or two or slightly altered a very small percentage of the code for personal use. Some fixes made it back into the main project, and anyone contributing lots of changes typically became a part of the official team over time. There was little or no value in "taking" someone's open source work and trying to re-brand it, etc.... As a result, the open source community really was a community. They worked together, generally knew each other etc...
What Google changed, is that thanks to their size, they are able to take existing open source projects, change and rebrand and virtually overnight become more popular than what they started from. Ideologically, there is really nothing wrong with this if you are truly all about open source.
But, realistically, what generally happens is that if your project picks up enough, it becomes a business. You need to dedicate time to it to keep up with demands/expectations. You make enough money on contributions to dedicate yourself or a resource (or multiple resources) to having a full-time job working on what was once a simple community contribution. Once you're invested in it to that degree, if someone comes along and takes that away, they've taken your livelihood. And they've done it with your permission.
This hasn't happened to me or anyone I know... but I would see it as a betrayal. My open source software turned against and by a company using it (indirectly) to drive profits.
Ranted on that long enough. Now to slam Microsoft.
I was in the Technical Preview on my old tablet for a while. But one day I grew fed up, reinstalled Windows 8 and gave the tablet away. The last bit wasn't motivated by the tech preview... it just happened. My problem with the preview was simple, notifications went up on a personal account on Twitter, each new build was increasingly unstable and it is too easy to sign up for. I'll stress right now that my issue is all 3 combined, not each one individually.
All 3 are important together because ease of access means a lot of non-technical people will have access to it. Rampant instability will mean increased need for support and combined with the non-technical user base it will mean an even bigger increase in that need. Post the information to a Twitter account is the least intuitive possible means of conveying important information... except if that Twitter account were not even a generic Microsoft one or one for the Tech Preview... AND IT ISN'T!!!!!
How bad the situation is became clear today. They have a bug that they have a fix for, but the fix can't be installed if Office is installed. And to top it off, they simply decided that it was fine to leave it that way. I don't follow Gabe Aul, but thankfully, were I still running the Tech Preview I follow enough people who do that the posts got retweeted into my feed by others.
This is Alpha software effectively, so, such laborious work-arounds really aren't all that terrible. But, given the potential size and intelligence of the install base, these issues and their work arounds should be delivered directly to the OS.
Alternatively, if access to the preview were substantially limited or required jumping through hoops you could ensure that those jumping through the hoops knew where to find the necessary support information.
Or they slow down the release cadence and just acknowledge that their current velocity is compromising the stability of builds and fixes by far too much.
Literally, eliminate any one of the three factors I talked about and I'd shut up. I don't care about any of them individually. This is just bush league non-sense. It is exacerbated by just how stable the first preview build was (which was rock solid). That would have been the secret 4th option. Intentionally release the buggiest build possible to start so that reviewers, etc... help stop people from onboarding unless they are brave.
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