[NTLUG:Discuss] Eclipse - running out of RAM?

[steve at sjbaker.org]

> On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 10:01:21AM -0500, MadHat Unspecific wrote:

> I've developed many applications in Java without the use of an IDE.  I
> don't understand what "tools" are required for Java compilation that
> can only accessed from Eclipse.
>
> The idea that an application can *only* be built using Eclipse is just
> a few semantic steps away from saying that Eclipse is a dependency.
> In fact, to me, that's exactly what it is.

As I said before - this is the Google SDK for the Android cellular phone
platform.  I was idly wondering whether some of the silly little 2D games
I've written over the years could be ported to Java and thence to the
Android platform.  Google are setting up a system like the iPhone and the
Xbox and Wii have where users can go to their site and pay small amounts
of money to download simple/fun applications...and maybe there is some
money to be made doing that when Android-equipped phones start to hit the
streets.

So I grabbed the SDK.  It says that it uses some plugins to Eclipse.

I believe they say that it IS possible to write programs for Android
without using Eclipse - but I get the impression that it would be better
to make use of it than not.

It's quite possible that some of those things are absolutely needed in
order to simulate the Android phone hardware on a PC.  This is not
ordinary Java development - this is development on a really weird platform
with a fairly strange "operating system"...and who-knows-what wierd stuff
going on at the Java level.

For example - my Java App can call functions that ask the telephone where
we are in the world - what is the phone's current Latitude and Longitude? 
Since I don't have an Android phone (nor can I get one - because they
aren't out yet) - how do I debug code that uses that?   Probably, I'm
going to need some kind of an IDE plugin that traps calls to that code and
forces a Lat/Lon return that I can somehow enter with a debugger GUI panel
or something.  There are other issues involved here - I probably want to
run the application at a speed appropriate to some crappy cell-phone's CPU
- or simulate what happens to my application when the phone goes into
power-save mode - or when the battery starts to die.

So when you consider that kind of issue - perhaps an IDE plugin with a
"phone simulator" control panel is the logical way for Google to go to get
those features to developers.  Let's be thankful that they decided to use
an OpenSourced IDE and support Linux as a development platform for the
Android in the first place!

However, I don't know for sure how important this stuff is because I don't
have Eclipse working yet.

It appears that there is an actual bug in the 64 bit version of Eclipse -
for which there is a patch someplace...I'm away from my regular computer
right now so I can't play with it.