ANDROID

[Patrice Terrier]

What do you think are the best tools to create ANDROID applications ?

I did try to install eclipse 64-bit on my Windows 8.1 computer, but i can't get it to work, there is always something missing.

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[Carlo Pagani]

https://xamarin.com/

Or if you know Delphi, XE5 is a reasonable solution.

Both however cost money.

[Gary Scott]

http://www.basic4ppc.com/

[Aslan Babakhanov]

Stick with Android NDK if you are planning to write applications where performance is the factor #1, otherwise - any tools capable to make Java applications (thus including xamarin, phonegap, basic4android etc)

[Patrice Terrier]

Ok, thanks to all who answered.

Finally, i have been able to setup eclipse on my computer, and run my first "hellow world" on my Samsung Galaxy note 3 phablet.

However looks like ANDROID apps are very class oriented, thus hidding me too much of what is really going on. 

JDK maybe 

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[Aslan Babakhanov]

https://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html

[Carlo Pagani]

Aslan:

any tools capable to make Java applications (thus including xamarin, phonegap, basic4android etc)

Not true - Xamarin compiles to native code. You do have the runtime overhead which grows proportionately to the APIS used, but it's native.

Edit: Well, Xamarin is still a virtual machine so having looked at performance comparisons, slightly faster than java but nowhere near native C++

I unfortunately believed the marketing:

Xamarin compiles your app to a native binary, not cross-compiled, and not interpreted. Native compilation gives users brilliant app performance for even the most demanding scenarios, like high frame rate gaming and complex data visualizations. With a small footprint (2.5 MB added to your application code), and negligible impact to app startup time, you can build apps that run faster, wherever they run. Full access to hardware acceleration like the GPU.

[Patrice Terrier]

Thus i will be looking for C++ if it is the fastest, may be i could reused what i have learned so far 

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[Frederick J. Harris]

Any progress on the Android front with C/C++ Patrice?  I was thinking of jumping in myself.  What is the Android NDK? 

[Frederick J. Harris]

Just looked up Android NDK...

The NDK is a toolset that allows you to implement parts of your app using native-code languages such as C and C++. For certain types of apps, this can be helpful so you can reuse existing code libraries written in these languages, but most apps do not need the Android NDK.

Before downloading the NDK, you should understand that the NDK will not benefit most apps. As a developer, you need to balance its benefits against its drawbacks. Notably, using native code on Android generally does not result in a noticable performance improvement, but it always increases your app complexity. In general, you should only use the NDK if it is essential to your app—never because you simply prefer to program in C/C++.

Typical good candidates for the NDK are CPU-intensive workloads such as game engines, signal processing, physics simulation, and so on. When examining whether or not you should develop in native code, think about your requirements and see if the Android framework APIs provide the functionality that you need.

[Patrice Terrier]

Code Select Expand

Any progress on the Android front with C/C++ Patrice?

This has been put onto my back burner for now.

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