> In general, no Java library works on Android except by happy coincidence
This is not true at all.
Every single library I have ever added in my build.gradle has always worked. Every. Single. Time.
Even libraries that were compiled with Java 8, which is the most baffling thing, if you think about it (since Android doesn't support Java 8).
Most of these libraries were compiled and deployed to the Maven repo by Java developers who had no idea whether their library was going to be used on Android. And yet, it does.
From Android's perspective, of course it isn't coincidence. Google implemented those APIs that they thought would be useful to Android developers. But from Java's perspective it is coincidence. If I have a Java application or a library (designed for SE or ME -- doesn't matter), it will only work on Android if I'm lucky (I'm not saying there's a 10% chance of it working, but it isn't 90% either). As a maintainer of several Java libraries -- none work on Android -- I feel this pain when people ask us to support Android, and there's a lot of work involved in making that happen.
This is not true at all.
Every single library I have ever added in my build.gradle has always worked. Every. Single. Time.
Even libraries that were compiled with Java 8, which is the most baffling thing, if you think about it (since Android doesn't support Java 8).
Most of these libraries were compiled and deployed to the Maven repo by Java developers who had no idea whether their library was going to be used on Android. And yet, it does.
This is no happy coincidence.