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Comment by bndw | Hacker News Reader

Is there any reason to hold out for a non Java/JVM Android development experience? I remember rumors of Dart or Python, but those seem to have died.

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Java is the language of the platform for the foreseeable future. You might want to check out something like Kotlin (great language which compiles to java bytecode) but IMO there is little reason to invest in Dart for Android right now.

It is heralded by the Dart team, entirely independently from the Android team. AFAIK, they are just shopping for a problem to solve with Dart now that they are not going to be able to ship their VM with Chrome.

You might be referring to Flutter, which is a project of Chrome, started independently from Dart, and who's purpose is to make the core of Chrome better for app development, not find a purpose for Dart.

Flutter started with JS as the scripting language. The Dart team is certainly lending a lot of support to Flutter, because of the promise of a compelling mobile story for Dart.

You should check out http://flutter.io/ which is a Dart environment that works on Android and iOS. It's probably closer to web development (without a document or CSS), than traditional Android development.

I have strong suspicion that Google will support Go in the future: - Go 1.5 introduced support for mobile development (and Android in 1.4): https://blog.golang.org/go1.5 - If Android can become less bound to Java, I see Go becoming the go-to language for Android development.

Then they will need to change their official statement that only Java matters, as communicated at Google IO 2014 Android Fireside.

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