It was posted on Gamasutra yesterday, and Slashdotted today. It's meant to be a high-level, market-centric overview, rather than dealing with the technical intricacies of the platform.
Unfortunately, a number of programmers are not happy with this line from my article:
While iPhone apps are written in Objective C, the Android SDK uses relatively more programmer-friendly Java.I even put a hedge term in there, but I guess I should have expected a backlash from iPhone developers (even though the article overall is very fair in discussing some of the advantages and disadvantages of each platform/market).
Jeff LaMarche, an author of iPhone development books, says overall he likes the article, but then says:
On the first page, for example, the article says that Android uses the "more developer friendly Java". What the hell does that mean? I've done both Java and Objective-C for a living, and neither one has ever waved to me or gotten me a cup of coffee. They're programming languages.Well, so is assembly language. I think "programmer-friendly" is a fairly obvious term, and means more than just a lot more people program in Java (although a larger potential support community is a factor in making a language friendly to programmers). The first comment on LaMarche's post points out a few more reasons.
Ultimately, though, the designation is subjective, and the choice of programming language is certainly not a deciding factor for an experienced developer. However, it might be a factor for new, inexperienced programmers.
In any case, it's good to see the article getting some attention. I hope that it generates some interesting discussion and brings some focus to Android as a game development platform.
Hi, I have being following your blog religiously for a couple of months now since I found it thanks to one of your post on indiegamer's forums. I am graduating soon (computer programmer degree in Canada) and thanks to your inspiration I will probably try my luck as an indy game dev (I'll probably get a part time job though so I have a bit of stability).
ReplyDeleteThanks again for sharing your experience and information, I wish you the best luck, you are doing a great job.
GI
Great job taking incentive and writing an article about Android game development, it's definitely a burgeoning industry. It's interesting to hear a market-centric perspective; I've read a lot of technical information from the industry but haven't seen much market overviews. The controversy you mention regarding the phrase “programmer-friendly” applied to Java highlights the experience variety among programmers.
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