maemo.org - Talk - Everyone is a developer with Android App Inventor

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Re: Everyone is a developer with Android App Inventor

Quote:

Originally Posted by gerbick (Post 749512)

Too bad Kylix is nothing more than Delphi

If you and I could please step outside, and we'll settle this like forest dwellers.

:)

What do you mean nothing more than Delphi? Besides, they are reviving the code, not the product. That is, Delphi will finally reunite into the motherload, compiling for 3 OSs under the same IDE.

Architect unified several languages, and with the compiler made cross-platform you have the ability to use several languages on several platforms.

Man I can't wait. I think I'll have to sell my car, though.

Re: Everyone is a developer with Android App Inventor

hahaha.

I'm admittedly an ol' C++ programmer that's refused to go back to that - if I have to deal with memory pointers ever again in my lifetime, I'll end up on CNN. But with that said, I'm not the biggest Delphi fan, but I can recognize a good platform when I see one.

And Kylix allowed me to push out some thick client stuff rapidly when I needed it to be done faster than I could have done so in C at the time (was too rusty and oddly placed on a project I should have never been part of)...

No need to take care of things like forest dwellers though ;)

Re: Everyone is a developer with Android App Inventor

Would like to see one for n900 app development.

Re: Everyone is a developer with Android App Inventor

Quote:

Originally Posted by ndi (Post 749446)

Embarcadero is reviving Kylix code and, with just a bit of luck, it could come to ARM.

Surprising. I did most of my early programming using Delphi, and was excited as Borland pushed towards Linux with Kylix.

The primary downside I see is multiple layers of UI toolkit (VCL -> Qt) and the fact that even the most basic editions cost almost $1000, which is a hard charge when core platform tools are both free and open.

Re: Everyone is a developer with Android App Inventor

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljmt01 (Post 749592)

Would like to see one for n900 app development.

It already sorta does exist... Ovi App Wizard and Qt Creator.

Re: Everyone is a developer with Android App Inventor

Quote:

Originally Posted by wmarone (Post 749598)

The primary downside I see is multiple layers of UI toolkit (VCL -> Qt) and the fact that even the most basic editions cost almost $1000, which is a hard charge when core platform tools are both free and open.

Toolkit overhead should be low, if they actually go on with this.

And yes, it's pretty steep, but if it covers W32, Mac and Linux, it's worth the cash. As a serious coder, it's not a very high price to pay, but I agree it's not exactly accessible.

However, (for Windows only) there's the Explorer version that, for the lowly price of not having IDE plugin enhancements and having to use open components, is free.

Don't think they update it though. So, likely, no cross-compiler.

Re: Everyone is a developer with Android App Inventor

Quote:

Originally Posted by ndi (Post 749446)

This has been done before, multiple times, and has gone two ways:

* the no-typing way (done by Microsoft, and way better): Dead before it hit the ground. Works well for hello world, meow, but on the next step it's way faster by keyboard, and before the first 2 days you feel like the whole graphical thing is holding back. If you spend 4 weeks doing an app that can be summed to 10 lines you're doing it wrong.

* the start easy-then-type (done by everyone, it's called a RAD Tool). Works great to speed up the repetitive task of adding buttons, arranging, assigning components. Once these are done, you F12 back to the editor and type like there's no tomorrow. Point being, you have to code, there is no help there.

Either way, all it did was raise absolutely-zero level to can-make-an-app-that-meows, by teaching you nothing. The curve hasn't changed, if you want to write an app you still need to learn to code.

Besides, all it did is ensure there are going to be a shovel-load of stupid, do-nothing, click to make funny sound apps. It will look good in 5 months when Android has 1 million apps. It's just that 950.000 can be replaced by 4 lines of code.

I still hold hope, though. Embarcadero is reviving Kylix code and, with just a bit of luck, it could come to ARM.

There's a third way: UML :)

Re: Everyone is a developer with Android App Inventor

The one reason this WILL NOT flood the market:

Quote:

Pay a registration fee ($25.00) with your credit card (using Google Checkout)

Yeah, people are not going to pay that. This is clearly for making quick custom apps, or prototyping apps, or maybe making a legit app.

Re: Everyone is a developer with Android App Inventor

Looks nice, but honestly speaking I do not see any practical use of this tool. Any more or less useful app needs some code logic behind the UI (something a bit more complicated than just connecting sound to button click event :)). How can I implement for example Quick Sort algorithm or write Chess game?

As for me it was better to provide such kind of tool with an Android SDK just to help developers to create UI, but not as separate standalone tool.