this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Do you think the same project, but written in Go, would compile be significantly faster and if so, why can't the compiler for the Android project achieve a similar speed?

Edit: added "compile", as that's what I meant.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I 100% think it would. Android Studio is hot garbage. Not just the compiler, but the whole build process.

Gradle configuration syncing takes over a minute for the most minor of changes when building a project. Importing a new package in Go takes less than a second in most cases.

Changing a version of any imported package in Android Studio has a 50-50 chance of breaking everything. Heck, even creating a new project in Android Studio has a 50-50 chance of working.

The reasons why Android Studio can't achieve similar speeds are plenty, but here are some:

  • The whole thing is a patchwork of randomly assembled pieces, with a complete mess of UI and unbelievably confusing settings.
  • It is also being developed by Google and JetBrains, so no single entity is responsible for the product.
  • The fact that it’s developed in Java doesn’t help, sometimes you can almost see the monstrous garbage collector having to swipe away the memory while the IDE freezes and you have to wait 30 seconds for the app to become responsive again.
  • Android Studio is a resource hog, requiring at least 4 GB of RAM to work properly. I had to buy another 8 GB RAM stick just for it to function properly. Also, no matter what CPU you have, it's still going to use it 100%.