This may be one of the reasons Google invented Go (language). I wouldn't be surprised to see if future versions of their platforms are Go-lang only. Make Java obsolete
Go is entirely pointless as a GUI language - it has a niche it tries to fit well.
Dart is much much better as a Java replacement and efforts like flutter are really promising for cross language dev - IPC architecture behind it and chrome (Mojo) is how Android should have been implemented, then it doesn't matter what languages you use they are trivial to swap because IDL defined interfaces can be reimplemented transparently and client API can be generated automatically. Instead you are locked in to their JVM
interesting to see that the highly-supported VM platforms are spawning ecosystems of languages that target other languages. javascript is the best example but JVM is a close second (clojure, scala, kotlin).
the trade-off here is accepting build slowness & complexity in exchange for escaping the negatives of the default language for your platform.
I think we won't get off this trend until we figure out a bytecode format that balances sandboxing and portability. WASM?
I agree but I don't understand how that relates to Dart (has a standalone VM of decent quality) or Mojo (IPC API language - basically abstracts stuff on a OS process level - cross language/VM/process interop being transparent)
Both great products with great technology but neither is ubiquitous. JVM & javascript have pentrated their target audience enough that 'building on top' saves your users some installation work.
I'd be happy with golang for Android -- but if Google is interested in that, they seriously have the project understaffed. Seems like just a few engineers on the go mobile project. It's been alpha stage for almost a year.
Isn't Dart for browsers? And it looks like WebAssembly might overtake Dart there. Maybe that would work for Chrome Web Apps on Android, I haven't tried.
For native apps, I think it's still mainly Java, tho JetBrains is promoting Kotlin as an alternative.
The way I remember it dart was released to replace javascript as an actual viable sane language for apps, which means it could double as a longterm replacement for smartphone apps as well.
Mozilla resisted dart in the browser and focused heavily on improving javascript which left dart dead in the water.
Judging from the mess that cross compiling binary to Android is (compared to iOS), it seems that Google is not seriously offering that as an option.
Weird to me, as it is the best way to ensure every one can do what every they like on your platform (and possible re-use large portions of code on other platforms).
No clue why you are being downvoted as this is an important point: Android's Java forcefeed is negative in more ways than one. We need multiple alternatives (yes yes Kotlin I know but more). Many programmers dislike Java and will do anything to avoid having to use it.
