undefined | Better HN

0 pointsfngjdflmdflg1y ago0 comments

>The fact your [1] link is a class that's not even used in the TextView class

The [1] link is only used by TextView. It is completely reliant on TextView and can't be used by other components. And yes, it is used, right here: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/... mEditor is used over 400 times in TextView.java. Did you even read it before commenting?

>The fact your [0] link is to a copy of the TextView from 2017 is even funnier.

Why is that funny? Most of it has not changed. I linked to the up to date one in the second link. I searched "TextView source code" on Google to get the first one. It gets the point across and doesn't matter how old it is.

>Hmm yes, 8,700 lines to "just show text". No hyperbole detected there. Who cares about fonts, shadows, or any other visuals on or around the text, all we're showing is "just text".

I'm pretty sure a lot of that is handled by DynamicLayout, not TextView, although correct me if I'm wrong here. If if it isn't, it should be, and is indicative of poor software design. Shadows certainly should not be handled by TextView, I have no idea why anyone would think that.

Take a look at Flutter's implementation. Text is just 1,400 lines, a large portion of which is documentation (another thing the Adnroid SDK sorely lacks,) and it just shows text to the user.[0] Somehow all the "tight coupling" issues have gone away here, and there is no need to throw a text editor into the code. How does Flutter edit text? It has a base EditableText class[1] that is then exposed by simpler widgets like TextField[2]. Now if I want to make my own custom editable text I can without having to recreate the whole thing.

>And? It's called code de-duplication

No. You don't get rid of separation of concerns to save a few bytes. If TextView cannot be made into a separate component that EditText uses then it should implement the functionality of TextView on its own. This is called the single-responsibility principle. A TextView should not be a texteditor. It can't get any simpler than that. Either refactor the text viewing components into something that can be shared by TextView and EditText, or separate them completely.

>The funniest part to me is that your rant is about TextViews though. When that's been soft deprecated for 5 years already (replaced by Compose Text element).

I wonder why this great piece of code was deprecated if it's so great? And yes, that's another great thing about the Andorid SDK. Everything is deprecated while its replacements are only supported on new devices. Then you end up having to do:

if(onReallyOldDevice){

   useDeprecatedMethod1()

}else if (onOldDevice){

   useDeprecatedMethod2()

}else{

   useSoonToBeDeprecatedMethod()

}

See eg. accessing file systems.

[0] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/master/packages/flut...

[1] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/master/packages/flut...

[2] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/master/packages/flut...

0 comments

flutas1y ago

> I wonder why this great piece of code was deprecated if it's so great? And yes, that's another great thing about the Andorid SDK. Everything is deprecated while its replacements are only supported on new devices.

Again, same vibes.

The reason you are seeing anything like this, is because you are looking at foundation code and expecting app code. This code is going to be used by apps to run on ALL devices. Best way I can try to describe it is just library code sits between the kernel and software, it has to support everything. Company X's latest XR/AI app doesn't.

Software is constantly evolving for whatever the latest trend is be it VR, AI, or whatever, and eventually you move on from devices that don't get updated. But, so do users. Users by and far want the latest and greatest, shiniest thing. That means every company wants to support `thing`, even if it means dropping `oldThing`.

Funnily enough I had to have a discussion at my job today about dropping support for FireOS 6 devices because of OS specific bugs that happen with Compose that cause a buggy UI. We can't make it work exactly as we want while providing a good experience, so we won't be providing an experience at all. The reason that's okay? Those devices have usage percentage that's practically nil, as they are older devices and not the "latest and greatest".

fngjdflmdflgOP1y ago

>Again, same vibes.

Are you serious? The Android devs have been working to fix the deprecation and update issue for the last decade and a half. I think you are actually the junior dev here if you are defending it. They have been slowly moving from their custom fork of Linux back to mainline, separating device-level components (eg. Bluetooth) as separate modules, trying to force device vendors to support a baseline of features via GKI, trying to separate kernel updates from higher level system updates, and trying to increase SoC support duration from vendors like Qualcomm. The minuscule device support length on Android is a real issue that Google has spent tens of millions of dollars trying to fix (and only now are they even close to being able to start fixing it). A lot of it is due to political decisions that began at the beginning of Android's lifetime, when device vendors had much more control over the operating system. The fact that pointing that out as a flaw gives you "junior programmer vibes" is seriously concerning.

Also, you failed to address even a single point I made in my post about TextView.

flutas1y ago

> The fact that pointing that out as a flaw gives you "junior programmer vibes" is seriously concerning.

It's the fact that you hand wave away Text rendering as "just showing text" while claiming you've made your own.

Then claim that platform code is terrible because it...uses flags to determine what platform it's on and use the appropriate commands...

THAT is what gives me JR eng vibes.

> Also, you failed to address even a single point I made in my post about TextView.

And there's the lack of reading comprehension with a Jr.

"You didn't say anything about X component."

Yeah, when talking about components A-Z and the structure around them you don't typically need to point out that X will be included, but here we are.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsfngjdflmdflg1y ago0 comments

>The fact your [1] link is a class that's not even used in the TextView class

>The fact your [0] link is to a copy of the TextView from 2017 is even funnier.

>Hmm yes, 8,700 lines to "just show text". No hyperbole detected there. Who cares about fonts, shadows, or any other visuals on or around the text, all we're showing is "just text".

>And? It's called code de-duplication

>The funniest part to me is that your rant is about TextViews though. When that's been soft deprecated for 5 years already (replaced by Compose Text element).

if(onReallyOldDevice){

   useDeprecatedMethod1()

}else if (onOldDevice){

   useDeprecatedMethod2()

}else{

   useSoonToBeDeprecatedMethod()

}

See eg. accessing file systems.

[0] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/master/packages/flut...

[1] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/master/packages/flut...

[2] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/master/packages/flut...

0 comments

flutas1y ago

Again, same vibes.

fngjdflmdflgOP1y ago

>Again, same vibes.

Also, you failed to address even a single point I made in my post about TextView.

flutas1y ago

> The fact that pointing that out as a flaw gives you "junior programmer vibes" is seriously concerning.

It's the fact that you hand wave away Text rendering as "just showing text" while claiming you've made your own.

Then claim that platform code is terrible because it...uses flags to determine what platform it's on and use the appropriate commands...

THAT is what gives me JR eng vibes.

> Also, you failed to address even a single point I made in my post about TextView.

And there's the lack of reading comprehension with a Jr.

"You didn't say anything about X component."

Yeah, when talking about components A-Z and the structure around them you don't typically need to point out that X will be included, but here we are.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse