[android-developers] Re: creating a complex tablet app

2013-02-17 Thread b0b
I have to agree with the OP somewhat.

The thing is...that the Fragment API is horrible. Overly complicated and 
complex and error prone.
As if the activity lifecycle wasn't complex enough, a new one on top of 
that was added. 
It shows that it was designed in a hurry to get the first version of 
Honeycomb out of the door.

I wished a more conventional API had been devised instead for multi-pane 
UIs, more similar traditional desktop apps.

Of course someone will remply that using the Fragment UI is dead easy and 
it's the best API invented ever. Someone always say things are easy.


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[android-developers] Re: creating a complex tablet app

2013-02-17 Thread Lew
bergstr wrote:
>
> I have a rather complex app that runs on tablets only. The complexity 
> stems from the fact that the app allows navigation in a tree to an 
> arbitrary depth, where each node in the tree may have a different 
> appearance (depending on the node type). In addition, I have 3 tabs, that 
> allow changing between the navigation view, and 2 other views. On the left, 
> I have a list. This scenario forces me to dynamically create and replace 
> fragments all the time.
>

A number of apps have similar profiles.
 

>
> First, let me say that I started this project expecting that programming a 
> UI like the one described above would be about as demanding as on a desktop 
> platform. I have 20 years of experience in creating desktop or web apps on 
> different OS's using 3 different programming languages, so I thought I had 
> seen it all. Little did I know. I can now say that the Android UI framework 
> is the worst I have ever seen. In my opinion, it is absolutely unfit for 
> fairly complex applications. It is a phone OS, period. Dont even think of 
> using it as an "enterprise programming platform".
>

You make two different claims here, one that the Android UI is terrible and 
the other that it is unfit 
for enterprise applications. The first claim is opinion and therefore 
unsupportable. The second is a
rather pointless objection to a system that is  intended for running on 
mobile devices and it's wrong
anyway. Given that enterprise apps are tiered, and many, many companies 
like LinkedIn and Facebook 
and IMDB andGoogle themselves program enterprise apps just fine on the 
Android platform, the market
seems to have disproven your claim.. 

Surely you don't think HTML is superior to Android Java for UI programming, 
yet it has been a part of 
enterprise apps since the term "enterprise app" was born.


> I have spent almost one year now creating my app, and I am still 
> encountering random misbehavior from fragment management (fragments 
> re-appearing from nowhere, duplicate action bar entries). When I hear the 
> name "FragmentManager" I shudder. I must say that for the first time in my 
> professional life I am at the point where I consider to simply give up an 
> effort that has already cost me an arm and a leg.
>

In money?

I'm sorry you had such a bad personal experience with fragments. I know 
quite a few Android 
programmers who produce highly complex enterprise clients using fragments 
in a matter of weeks.

Sometimes new ways of doing things can be a struggle to learn, as one 
forces new patterns and ways 
of thinking on oneself against the inertia of years of doing something 
another way. Some people fall 
into the trap of blaming the tools for their difficulty, whining that they 
suck or don't implement the proper 
cognitive model, and impede their progress even further. 

No matter how good you are on the accordion, you might be defeated by the 
violin. But for those with the 
talent and the perseverance, enlightenment and the concomitant skills can 
be attained.

But even the best of programmers on the best of platforms with the best of 
tools encounter, oh, how did you 
phrase it?, "random [sic] misbehavior".


> My suggestion to Google, if you ever want to see good tablet apps appear 
> (no wonder there arent any), is this: get some good, experienced designers 
> on this project  - not the teenagers that appear on the android [sic] 
> developer feed in youtube [sic], let them gather requirements and design 
> and implement something that really makes sense and works. Its not that 
> difficult - it has been done many times before.
>

Including on the Android platform. Including by Google.

-- 
Lew
 

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