[Mobile-sig] Experiments with Dalvik

[David Boddie]

On 2016-05-17 23:04, Russell Keith-Magee wrote:

> This is a really interesting approach - thanks for sharing.

You're welcome. I hope it helps to provide new insights into the other
approaches people are taking.

> I’ve been doing something similar recently with VOC [1]. I’m
> targetting Java bytecode rather than Dalvik, but with a similar end
> goal: to take Python source code, and deploy it to Android as a native
> application without needing to use the Android NDK. A couple of weeks
> ago I published a video showing a native iOS, Android and single-page
> web app, all doing the same thing running on Python [2], using this
> toolchain (plus some other tools).

That should be interesting to see. I don't have much time to look at it
this week, but I'll try to make some time after the weekend.

> Of course, you’ve got the added bonus that you don’t need the
> Android SDK either, which would be a huge win in my book. What’s the
> impact of Android’s move to ART on this approach?

The first thing I checked was whether ART makes work done for Dalvik
obsolete. According to the following document, it shouldn't have any
obvious effect: both use Dex files and Dex bytecode.

https://source.android.com/devices/tech/dalvik/index.html

If I was writing anything complex enough then perhaps I would run into
differences. Currently, I'm testing on a fairly old Android device.

I may well buy something running an up-to-date version to test on, and
a tablet might be interesting given that I don't really want to start
collecting phones. I'd be interested in receiving suggestions for any
that are reasonably priced, have unlockable bootloaders, and whose
manufacturers supply the source code that they are supposed to for
system components. I realise that I may have narrowed the field a bit
with those requirements. ;-)

David