Search code examples
javaandroidrad

Is there a 'best' Java RAD - for al Android/Linux/Windows?


What's cross-platform for those, flexible, easy to develop and debug, and offers good cross-platform GUI development?

Good support for ODBC database is a plus and support for GIS database is a major plus.


Solution

  • As mentioned by Yann, there are no cross-platform RAD system that cover both Android and Linux/Windows Java. Android is not really a Java-based platform; the Android SDK converts the Java bytecode to the more optimized Dalvik VM bytecode. For this reason, you may even find that even non-GUI java code does not "port" (I've run into a couple of such issues).

    There exist some libraries that attempt to provide cross-platform access to the graphics layer such as libgdx, but none that will allow you to create "one-size fits all" GUI code easily. In general, though, you wouldn't want to do that either - the UI concepts are very different on a small touch screen and a large mouse-controlled desktop.

    From a development point of view, any development environment that comfortably allows you to split the project into an Android project (for the Android stuff), a desktop Java project (for the desktop specific code), and a Java library project for the common functionality (keeping in mind the minor differences) that can be shared between both projects will do.

    Currently only Eclipse provides a RAD environment for Android (as far as I know), but there is nothing to prevent you building the Android GUI part in Eclipse (importing the common code as a library) and doing the desktop project in a different environment if you prefer Netbeans or others for that.