Appendix B. Extending Android development
In this appendix
- Using WebViews
- Working with JavaScript
- Alternative programming languages
For consumers buying a smartphone, one of the appeals of Android is that it doesn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. You can pick your screen size, form factor, and more. For developers, the story is much the same. Android provides a standard set of development tools: Android SDK/NDK, ADT, and so on. This is great both for getting new developers started, and for standardization on large development teams. But you’re not constrained to this standard set. The ability to do everything from the command line and the use of open build tools such as Ant allows other development environments like IntelliJ IDEA to be used for developing Android applications. You can go even further and eschew Java development completely by using web technologies, or by using alternative programming languages. Let’s take a look at each of these approaches, first by examining web technologies.