Ruby practical for Android Development? [closed]

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I am trying to break into a bit of development and have been advised Ruby is quite an easy / powerful language to get started on.

My main hope for learning a programming language was to break into mobile development. I have heard Ruby can be used for Android development with the开发者_开发技巧 right 'kit' but is this a practical language to use for this or will it end up being a more long winded approach than just learning Java from the get go?

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I recently read about Ruboto. You should check it out too!

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Maybe you should be looking at http://rhomobile.com/?

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Almost all the documentation on android development is focused on Java, and eclipse. While I'm not a big fan of Eclipse as an IDE (bloat); it is what the lot use, so it is what I use.

Where you'll find hardship with ruby is when you have to do something that is atypical.. something that is purely android. It will save you time in the beginning, however as with all high level languages, it will end up costing you more when you need to get "dirty"... The net result will be the same.

I program ruby/rails during my day job and android for my "unpaid". Both are good languages, but there are strings attached with any language.

Keep in mind also that the Android platform is Java supported.. In this you know if there are new features in OS 5..6..n then you can be sure there is a way to access them in Java. Ruby might be quick to integrate them, but then it depends on the developers (us) of Ruby. Also keep in mind that on some older devices 1.x..2.x there may be things that run slow when passed through ruby. (I don't know how it's interpreter works)..

Last note. If you learn Ruby for android, and you apply for a job programming Android, I'm betting they will expect Eclipse/Java not xxx/Ruby

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Not very sure of Ruby , but you can surely use JRuby http://code.google.com/p/jruby-for-android/

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If your goal is to learn mobile development on Android, I would highly suggest sticking with Java. The Android SDK is Java based, and the majority of documentation and examples (including the official docs) you find will be in Java.

While Ruby is a powerful language, it is primarily used for web development. You may have a difficult time finding documentation, and support when you're not using standard Android language.

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It appears that Google mainly supports using Java with Eclipse. While you probably could do it with Ruby, I think your best bet is to just use Java and Eclipse.