Languages/Tools for android dev

● Corona
● HTML, CSS, Js
● Python
● C#
● C++
● Koltin
● Java
● Flutter/Dart

Corona is a software development kit that can be used for developing

Android apps using Lua. It has two operational modes, namely Corona
Simulator and Corona Native. The Corona Simulator is used to build apps
directly while the Corona Native is used to integrate the Lua code with an
Android Studio project to build an app using native features.
While Lua is a little limited as compared to Java, it is also much simpler and
has an easier learning curve. Moreover, there are build in monetization
features as well as various assets and plugins that enrich the app
development experience. Corona is mostly used to create graphics
applications and games but is by no means limited to that.

Android apps can be created using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript using the
Adobe PhoneGap framework that is powered by Apache Cordova. The
PhoneGap framework basically allows the usage of web development skills
to create hybrid apps that are shown through “WebView” but are packaged
like an app.
While the Adobe PhoneGap framework is enough for basic tasks in the
realm of Android App Development, it hardly requires much programming
except for JavaScript. And since it needs a lot of work to even create a
decent app, it is better to use the other languages in this list if you want to
be called a true Android developer(Yes…That’s a thing!)

Python can be used for Android App Development even though Android
doesn’t support native Python development. This can be done using
various tools that convert the Python apps into Android Packages that can
run on Android devices.
An example of this is Kivy that is an open-source Python library used for
developing mobile apps. It supports Android and also encourages rapid
app development (which is a win-win situation according to me!). However,
a downside to this is that there won’t be native benefits for Kivy as it isn’t
natively supported.

C# is quite similar to Java and so it is ideal for Android App Development.

Like Java, C# also implements garbage collection so there are fewer
chances of memory leaks. And C# also has a cleaner and simpler syntax
than Java which makes coding with it comparatively easier.

Earlier, the biggest drawback of C# was that it could run only on Windows
systems as it used the .NET Framework. However, this problem was
handled by Xamarin.Android (formerly Mono for Android) which is a
cross-platform implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure.
Now, Xamarin.Android tools can be used to write native Android apps and
share the code across multiple platforms.
C++ can be used for Android App Development using the Android Native
Development Kit(NDK). However, an app cannot be created totally using
C++ and the NDK is used to implement parts of the app in C++ native
code. This helps in using C++ code libraries for the app as required.
While C++ is useful for Android App Development in some cases, it is
much more difficult to set up and is much less flexible. It may also lead to
more bugs because of the increased complexity. So, it is better to use Java
as compared to C++ as it does not provide enough gain to offset the efforts
required.

Now Kotlin is the official language for Android App Development declared
by Google since 2019. Kotlin is a cross-platform programming language
that may be used as an alternative to Java for Android App Development. It
has also been introduced as a secondary “official” Java language in 2017.
Kotlin can interoperate with Java and it runs on the Java Virtual Machine.
The only sizable difference is that Kotlin removes the superfluous features
of Java such as null pointer exceptions. It also removes the necessity of
ending every line with a semicolon. In short, Kotlin is much simpler for
beginners to try as compared to Java and it can also be used as an “entry
point” for Android App Development.

Firstly Java was the official language for Android App Development (but
now it was replaced by Kotlin) and consequently, it is the most used
language as well. Many of the apps in the Play Store are built with Java,
and it is also the most supported language by Google. In addition to all this,
Java has a great online community for support in case of any problems
(And trust me, there will be problems!).
However, Java is a complicated language for a beginner to use as it
contains complex topics like constructors, null pointer exceptions,
concurrency, checked exceptions, etc. Also, The Android Software
Development Kit(SDK) increases the complexity to a new level!
All in all, Java is a great language to experience the full joys of Android App
Development. However, it may be a little complex with beginners who
would prefer to start with something easier and then return to it.

Flutter was introduced by Google as an open-source technology for coding

and creating native apps for Android and iOS. Flutter is relatively new as it
was officially presented in December 2018 as the first stable version 1.0 at the
Flutter Live event.

Flutter combines ease of development with performance similar to native

performance while maintaining visual consistency between platforms. Flutter’s
programming language, Dart, was initially intended as a replacement for
JavaScript. Most importantly, Flutter is open-source and completely free. At
the moment, Flutter has equal popularity with React Native on both GitHub
and Stack Overflow. Speaking of which, we contrasted Flutter’s and React
Native’s pros and cons using nine criteria in a recent article.

Google uses Flutter for various Google Assistant modules and the Google
Home Hub user interface. Moreover, there are already 50,000 Flutter apps
available in the Google Play Store, and this number is increasing at a high
rate. Alibaba Group, eBay, Groupon, and other popular e-commerce providers
use Flutter as well to give their web and mobile applications uniform looks.

Tim Sneath, Group Product Manager at Google, says, “Our vision for Flutter is
something that many of us have been dreaming of for years — a powerful,
general-purpose, open UI toolkit for building stunning experiences on any
device-embedded, mobile, desktop or beyond”.

1. Quick code development

Flutter creators wanted to invent a technology with the quickest opportunity to

deliver a great-performing, cross-platform mobile application. The following
features allow this:

● Hot reload
● Widgets
 ● Mininal code and access to native features

2. Great UI
Will Larche, Software Engineer at Google, says, “Flutter’s architecture is
designed for building beautiful, custom UI. Flutter’s main goal is to make
building polished, custom app interfaces a faster, more delightful experience
for designers and developers. Flutter is powerful enough to draw anything
designers dream up.”

● Beautiful costum designs

● Same business logic and UI.
● Huge potential to UI customization.

Why Choose Flutter on Your Next Project

There are things that are of great value to the business — platform
stability, its performance, a guarantee of successful support, and
improvement of technologies and products. Any problems and
shortcomings in any of these aspects may lead to risks, including direct
and indirect financial losses.

With this in mind, Flutter lowers risks for your business due to the
following points:

1. The best in class (cross-platform) performance and resource

consumption due to the compilation of native code and
high-performance rendering engine. The first provides an easy
way of establishing communication between platform-native
code and Dart through platform channels. Thus, developers
can implement into a Flutter app anything that a native app can
do, just with a little more effort on the native side. Because of
the engine (Flutter uses Skia for rendering itself), a UI built in
Flutter can be launched on virtually any platform, assuming
this platform supports Flutter. Putting it differently, developers
 no longer have to adjust the UI to transfer it to a platform,
which simplifies the development process vastly.

A good UX is incredibly dependent on the performance of the

application. Flutter application performance in most cases will
be indistinguishable from the native application. This is
because Flutter doesn’t rely on intermediate code
representations or interpretation. Application on Flutter is
compiled directly into machine code, eliminating any
performance errors in the interpretation process. This
provides it with the highest performance and makes it the
most resource saving software among cross-platform
technologies.
2. Better developer productivity is achieved due to Flutter being
primarily designed for quicker code writing. It consists of
ready-to-use widgets, its syntax requires less code to be
written, and hot reload speeds increase the searching for and
correction of bugs. All this results in fewer man-hours for
developers.

Also, finding Flutter engineers in 2020 is not a problem — the

community of fans is growing, especially among Android
developers. According to Stack Overflow Developer Survey
2020, 68.8% of developers — which is among the top 3 — love
to use Flutter and have expressed interest in continuing to
develop with it.
3. Quicker time to market. Due to the greater productivity of
Flutter developers, it takes less time to create an application,
which means that compared to other programming languages
and frameworks, applications in Flutter are written quicker and
enter the market earlier with equal effort. Thus, the less coding
and support effort needed, the quicker the time to market.
 4. Low-cost app development. Flutter provides more efficient
development work and, accordingly, to develop an application
requires less man-hours. At the same time, the cost of an hour
is at the average market (and sometimes even lower) level. As
a result, the cost of the application on Flutter is lower than
when using other cross-platform languages or native
development.

“Getting started with Flutter was truly awesome. The huge power and
productivity you get with instant stateful Hot Reload was mind-blowing,”
says Jacob Kristensen, Co-Founder of Reflectly.

Flutter’s Downsides
While Flutter has a lot of benefits that businesses can take advantage of,
there are some areas in which it still needs work.

● Lack of third-party libraries. Flutter is a newer technology. As such, the

volume of third-party libraries currently available for Flutter is limited.
Third-party libraries help speed up development time significantly, so
this is a definite downside to developing in Flutter.
● Large file size. Many, if not most, of the apps developed through Flutter
are destined for mobile devices only. Although current mobile devices
have large storage capacities, file size is still important. For example,
the creation of a hello world app in Flutter could account for 4.7MB to
6.7MB. The same app created in native Java is closer to 500KB.
 ● New skills required. While Flutter is easy to use and can be learned by
non-programmers, it does require developers to learn Dart first. This
adds an additional phase of learning, which can increase the time and
money for any project. That being said,if a developer knows Java/C#,
he or she can easily upskill to Dart. Moreover, Flutter’s Dart
programming language is pretty easy to learn for those with little
programming experience.

If you define Flutter as your solution after reading the material above, check
through the points when Flutter perhaps should not be your choice if you are:

● creating an app with rare native libraries;

● developing progressive web and instant apps (small-size apps);
● having a lot of point interaction with the device hardware, most likely
there is no plugin for this;
● developing AR/VR apps.

Apps Built with Flutter

Although Flutter is young enough, it is already used by such global services
as Google Ads, Alibaba, AppTree, Reflectly and many others.