[ajross]

Except it clearly doesn't. For the use case in question, an IDE can build a .apk and install it on a single connected device. Can you run it in the same step? What if the app has a 10MB data set and takes 8 seconds to install, can you optimize that by copying only the binary? Can you wipe the data from the host machine? How about install a known data set for a test? Install on 5 devices and run a test suite without manual intervention?

Every one of these is a valuable optimization for some workflow somewhere. All of them reduce the compile/test cycle by seconds or minutes, speeding development. NONE of them are done by any IDE I'm aware of.

Seriously: write code to help you write code. If you aren't doing this, you probably aren't writing good code. And if you gave that answer in an interview, I for one wouldn't hire you.

[cageface]

How good is code completion in VIM for Android apps? I was an emacs guy for many years but since I started doing iOS I can't imagine writing Objective-C without really solid code completion. Maybe it's less necessary in Android?

[Mavrik]

Because you're writing Java, which is a very verbose language, all code completion and code generation (method stubs, auto constructors etc.) are a godsend when working with Android.

That's why I'm always wondering why anyone would so much want to waste time with typing Java on VIM (even though I DO use Vim for other programming tasks) instead of just using an IDE specifically customized to make such development faster and easier.

[cageface]

A few years ago I was having lunch with some of the guys from Franz Lisp and one of them said that his epiphany was that Java did have macros, but that they were write only and built into the IDE. I didn't really appreciate his insight at the time but I get it now.