[mardifoufs]

Stupid question: why does android use ART (and Dalvik before that)? I guess it's more performant for mobile phones, but then, is there a reason why other java apps don't use it outside of android? Has anyone tried using ART/Dalvik outside of the android ecosystem?

[pjmlp]

Easy, Google screwing up Sun licensing for embedded devices and creating their own Java based ecosystem from scratch.

Note that ART as it is now is the third implementation, first it was Dalvik, then ART pure AOT, and now ART interpreter/JIT/AOT.

Nokia and Sony-Ericsson already had relatively good J2ME implementations for Symbian, and Blackberry OS was powered by Java, when Android came out.

Unfortunately it didn't went for Google the same way, as it did for Microsoft.

Gosling interview on the matter,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be...