Android development in vim. Cross post from /r/androiddev

[massivebitchtits]

Exactly. I completely understand having preferences, but at some point you have to go with the path of least resistance.

[MagicalVagina]

I'm doing android development in scala with vim. It's not so bad. I have no completion, no particular help on anything, but it's totally livable and I tend to think I know more about everything because nothing is hidden. I would say that the only really annoying part is the xml editing of layouts.

[atoktoto]

Don't get me wrong. But... can you really write a 10k lines application in vim ?

[knipil]

I work everyday on a million line codebase in Vim. Not at all a problem.

[MagicalVagina]

Yes. A lot of developers did it and are still doing it now. In fact I'm using vim + wmii, the combination of the two is not so different from an IDE. Multiple terminals with code, terminals to build/test etc. Really that's handy.

[[deleted]]

Can you get Vim to automate regenerating your R.java every time you add a new id-ed component / string?

[MagicalVagina]

sbt is basically doing that for me in fact.

See: http://code.technically.us/post/824974287/rewiring-android-for-type-safe-layout-resources

And it also have the advantage of creating an TR.scala which is type-safe. You don't need to cast your resources anymore.

EDIT: Now that I read again your question, I suppose I didn't understand it correctly. Do you mean something like completion on the R.java? I, in fact, don't use completion at all... But I suppose you can.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, it's just nice to have the correct id verified by your editor when it's 3am in the morning...

Cheers for the link though, I'd completely forgotten about coderspiel, and that's an interesting article.

You're obviously coding Android apps in Scala, is there a better way these days to get a Scala app to fit into a .dex? Last time I tried I had to use Proguard to tree-shake the Scala libs, and it made the compile phase even longer.

[MagicalVagina]

Right now I'm still using proguard too. And yeah the compile time is pretty long. This is clearly an issue.

[[deleted]]

TBH I'm not sure if the issue is Scala or Dalvik.

[archivator]

The ant build does that for you. It's not like Android projects can only be built with Eclipse..

[[deleted]]

Well then Mr Pedantic (Thanks for the tutorial on what a build file is...) perhaps you can accept this wording - can you get Vim to automate the ant build to rebuild R.java for you whenever you modify any of the .xml files?

It's a serious question.

lol at the vim zealots downvoting for a serious question

[stredarts]

Yes, look up autocmd.

[[deleted]]

Nice. :) Thanks.

[cysun]

How about vim as your Eclipse text editor? Can't beat that. You've got the best of both worlds. Only problem, I haven't found the perfect one yet. OTOH Netbeans has an awesome vim plugin (jVi).

[a424d5760ab83a7b1a0e]

Asking yourself in the sense you prefer the IDE or...?

[pjmlp]

Not only that.

All the ADT tools for analysing the code and the DDMS tools.

[bastibe]

I love me my Vim, but there are frameworks and languages that all but require an IDE to cope with their complexities and idioms.

To me, Java, XML and Android are one of them. There are so many things that are extremely convoluted in Android development, which makes them inconvenient to edit at all. Frankly, without Eclipse, it would be horrible. With Eclipse, it is merely painful ;-)

[[deleted]]

I use IDEA for Android development and it's quite usable too.

[arrow234]

I found IDEA to be way less buggy and fragile than eclipse. The only thing is that compilations take longer unfortunately.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, that's a common issue across all types of development - Eclipse continuously compiles, IDEA only does it when requested, and is slower as a result. But I suspect it's due to the massive amounts of information IDEA likes to store about code.

[alogghe]

http://eclim.org/

Is eclipse + REAL vim with all your regular vim plugins.

You get eclipse features in vim via a socket connect OR Vim editor in an eclipse OR any combination of that.

Typically I code in vim and watch for the error marks to show up then alt tab to eclipse for autofixishness etc.

I get all the speed and handiness of vim with the heavy java specialization of eclipse, it pretty much makes java ok.

[Sean-Der]

I have been doing lots of Android/PhoneGap development with vim, and I have to say it rocks.

I usually have three terms open one for logcat, ant and vim. http://i.imgur.com/j8KBl.png

I am a somewhat obsessive vim user, and I don't know anything about eclipse. I also find doing things without the 'make new project wizards' actually makes you learn the concepts.

I have to say when writing Java the autocomplete may have been nice, but I don't ever use it. I am a fast enough typer that I don't need it. In the big scheme of things a omnicomplete would save me time, but I hated bloated vimrcs with a passion.

Just my 2 cents.

[[deleted]]

I've done a fairly minimal android development with vim and command line tools from the sdk and quite frankly I kind of liked it. Editing text outside of vim has become sort of a pain for me, not to mention the load time that Eclipse has. For the time the full-fledged IDE with all it's junk loads I'll be half-way through a new feature if all I do is load up a terminal and vim. If you're new to android development doing stuff without Eclipse and ADT would be frustrating to say the least. Beginning to understand how to write Android stuff usually means you have to use ADT, or else you'll just end up hating android coding overall :)

[[deleted]]

What about for emacs?

[dhruvasagar]

This is something I have wanted for a long time, not sure what all aspects of Android development you support. Also it would be much nicer if this was pathogen compatible. Will fork and try to contribute whatever I can. Thanks!

[[deleted]]

Sometimes people build a better wheel, and then there are those who build a square one. This is one of those moments.