Isn't Android mostly based on Java 7 (for instance, the Guava artifact you need for Android is the Java 7 one)? It can't be the reason why Java 8 is popular.
I believe that the reason why Java 8 is so popular is because there were a lot of backward compatibility problems with Java 9, compounded by the fact that Java 11 (the next LTS after Java 8; both Java 9 and Java 10 had very a very short life) removed many APIs deprecated by Java 9.
Yeah, Android Java has turned into Google's own version of J++.
Worse is that Kotlin fanboys don't get it, that without access to modern Java their Java FFI is worthless, as all Java 8+ libraries on Maven Central will slowly become useless on Android no matter what.
Additionally the language cannot expose JVM capabilities, unless they had even another backend.
So it will be stuff like value types, JNI replacement, proper generics, customized JIT and SIMD on the JVM, and plain old Java 8 on ART.
What does Maven Central have to do with the development of Java by Oracle?
That is precisely my point.
Android has completely unshackled itself from Java development. Between its reliance on Open JDK and Kotlin, it literally has zero dependencies on Java.
25 years of libraries to choose from slowly not available on Android.
If the Android team plans to rewrite all of them in Kotlin, be my guest.
Maybe they will manage before Fuchsia goes live and Flutter wipes the floor, and then everyone will be doing Dart anyway.
Have you noticed how shitty are all the languages designed at Google?
Thankfully someone that was there since Java 1.0 days bought its rights.
GraalVM would have been killed at birth.
I am also looking forward to the complete Android development environment to be running on top of Kotlin/Native, otherwise it will be so funny having to port Studio and everything else that depends on the JVM to modern versions, while Android itself is frozen into a Kotlin ecosystem + Java 8 subset.
> 25 years of libraries to choose from slowly not available on Android.
> If the Android team plans to rewrite all of them in Kotlin, be my guest.
What are you talking about?
Android developers can use Maven Central like any other Java developers without care about what JDK these dependencies were compiled with nor even whether they were written in Kotlin (most did not, obviously).
> I am also looking forward to the complete Android development environment to be running on top of Kotlin/Native, otherwise it will be so funny having to port Studio and everything else that depends on the JVM to modern versions, while Android itself is frozen into a Kotlin ecosystem + Java 8 subset.
Again, what are you talking about? Android development happily upgrades to the latest version of Kotlin without any trouble. Porting Studio? What? Do you even understand anything about any of these matters?
My point is simply that Android development today has zero dependencies on Java but you seem to have a thick chip on your shoulder and determined to spew toxic bile at Java and its ecosystem, while feeling some vague hate at Google in general.
I have zero interest in this debate, have fun tilting at these windmills.
They definitely can not use them, when they they make use of JVM features or JDK libraries delivered post Java 8.
Stating otherwise just proves that you don't know Java.
Android Studio and the complete Android toolchain runs on top of a JVM implementation, as the JVM moves forward, JetBrains will be forced to update InteliJ to take advantage of newer JVM versions, which will force Google to update all their Android development environment.
Just for kicks they are already being forced to do this,
Again, another proof of total lack of knowledge regarding Android
Toxic bille at Java?!?
Quite the contrary, I love Java since 1996 that is my third pillar alongside .NET and C++, what I completely hate is that Google played a Microsoft move with their flavor of Android Java (aka Google's J++), helped Sun going bankrupt withering them the revenue stream from Java deployments on Android, didn't bother to rescue Sun hoping that it would close doors without a hiss, now with its Android Java forces Java developers to create special versions of their libraries tailored to Android, and has a bunch of Silicon Valley fanboys supporting their damaging actions to the Java eco-system.
More like shitty Java. I'm glad Java is being relegated to a second class language that is not recommended for Android development. Kotlin is the now the recommended language for Android development. I give Google 2-3 years before they deprecate Java from Android.
I believe that the reason why Java 8 is so popular is because there were a lot of backward compatibility problems with Java 9, compounded by the fact that Java 11 (the next LTS after Java 8; both Java 9 and Java 10 had very a very short life) removed many APIs deprecated by Java 9.