[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
From the point of view of a (relative to you) dumb user of a nexus one, I'd be glad to add a bit to the disscusion. I'm running android 2.2 froyo on a nexus one, and i'm loving it. No other phone comes completely unlocked, allows tethering and a huge app catalog while not being on any carriers leash. I love pretty much about android but there ARE many glitches that have nothing to do with the sdk or developer tools that (except maybe when i flash my phone) I've never used. I found this discussion through search: After i went out of alarm clock mode and the phone got stuck in a weird kind of state. Any time I tried to interact with the home screen i'd get haptic feedback and zero response at the homescreen. After a couple of seconds trying to kick it out of that state the phone kind of bricked and I had to hard reset it (take out the battery) to get it working again. Stuff like that happens to me from time to time. Besides this incident, just a couple of interface refinements would do android quite good, like auto-fitting text in browser when using multi touch and not the zoom buttons etc. All that said, it's the best platform out there today (together with iOs, no offence), and my only real choice. Definitely the only truly customizable portable platform that exists today for mobile at all, and that's HUGE for 2 years of work. It's pretty buggy at times, but that'll go with time I guess (: Running FRF91 on an att band nexus one. Cellcom, Israel. Thanks so much for this amazing product, I'm excited to see where android and the phones running it evolves, and I'm anxious to see android market share roar, because honestly I think that besides the Iphone android is the only real decent mobile os out there. Iphone being the simplistic platform with a great fluid physics-interface UI, and android being everything that the iphone blatently isn't. Nadav -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 7:08 AM, Zigurd zigurd.medni...@gmail.com wrote: It looks like Google has about 7 people working on bug fixing plus a few other engineers with assigned issues. So it looks like there is no resource imbalance. For what it's worth, all engineers work on bug fixing (and this is well more than 7). Only a few interact with the public bug system; there is an internal issue tracker where most of the bug activity happens. (And most of that is not stuff you'll be aware of, because it involves feature work and bug fixing / stabilization of those new features prior to pushing out a new platform.) -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
Be a good fella', with 16 years in S/W development you can help everyone and contribute to the development tools. Android on the other hand is quite bug free, the developer tools have some minor/medium bugs. And I bet your software is as buggy as Android itself, if not more. On 7 июн, 20:50, blahblah...@gmail.com blahblah...@gmail.com wrote: On Jun 7, 11:13 am, TreKing treking...@gmail.com wrote: Q: Why is Android so buggy? A: Because it's software - simple as that. My software isn't that buggy. Neither is the iphone. You compared Android to every existing piece of software there is? No, but in my 16 years of commercial software development experience I have never come across any other piece of software that has so many serious bugs that are apparently not being addressed. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
Android issue tracking is in the open, so the numbers are available to anyone: There have been a bit over 9000 issues reported. about 600 released (fixed and shipped) and 600 for future release. It's hard to characterize all combinations of issue type and status. For example, there are 8 unreproducible enhancements. There are about 3500 new (not yet reviewed) defects. Issues can be starred so priority in Android issues is democratic. Of the 64 assigned issues, the only ones that have a house on fire number of stars are bugs in the alarm clock. So if your issue isn't getting attention, maybe it's fairly obscure. However there are a couple hundred New issues with a significant number of fans. Plus a couple dozen more highly rated issues that have been reviewed. Again, this is hard to characterize: Are the low-priority assigned issues sitting there waiting for higher priority issues to be cleared? On the whole, the number of high priority unresolved issues looks OK for a system the size of Android, especially with an open and democratic input side for issue tracking. The only qualitative problem I can identify looking at the way the voting system on defects works is that the most user-visible issues get 10X the votes of serious but less visible issues. I think Google's bug reviewers can figure that out. It looks like Google has about 7 people working on bug fixing plus a few other engineers with assigned issues. So it looks like there is no resource imbalance. There might be separate sources of issues, such as OEMs' and carriers' QA processes that might contain issues not visible here, but with the large number of Android users, it is unlikely there is a mass of hidden issues. Based on the available numbers, I don't think you can say Android is very buggy. On Jun 6, 5:25 pm, blahblah...@gmail.com blahblah...@gmail.com wrote: It seems that Android is very buggy compared not only to the iPhone, but to pretty much any other software. It's not just minor bugs either - pretty much every developer will come across many serious bugs. Some examples: - When you run the sdk setup.exe, the very first thing that happens is that it informs you that it can't connect using https, so you have to change the options to use 'http' instead. This appears to be a bug in the .exe rather than any kind of user issue because the https url works fine in the browser and this error seems to affect everyone. Sure, it's trivial to work around (just do a google search and you figure it out in 5 seconds), but the user shouldn't have to do that. It makes it look unprofessional. - When you view a TabWidget in the layout editor it crashes. - Every time you run an app in the emulator, it starts off with the screen locked so you need to press the Menu key. - Various socket bugs (or perhaps all the same bug) related to IOException not happening. Even something as simple as just trying to connect to a remote host that is not listening will cause it to hang instead of immediately returning an error. All of these bugs have been logged for months (some by me, some by other people) with no indication of any fix. At the moment I'm just using the emulator, but I'm wondering if the phones themselves are this buggy or if all the bugs are just in the development environment and emulator. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
Actually, I've been using BSD sockets since about 1992 with about 10 OSes :) The bug I mentioned is not a 'timeout', it is for connection refused which (as you know) should return immediately (network permitting) with a 'connection refused' error. With Android the socket read is sitting there for minutes after receiving the connection refused packet from the server.This is when testing on a local server. There is another bug related to closing a socket: when you close a socket from another thread it should cause any threads blocking on the socket to immediately return with an IOException, but this is not happening. This second bug is more serious because there is no way to interrupt the blocking thread. It appears that it is a bug in both the phones and the emulator. Next time you accuse someone of not knowing what they are talking about, you might want to check your facts first :) On Jun 9, 5:29 am, Anton Persson don.juan...@gmail.com wrote: OK, the only example you bring up about ANDROID itself is the IOException-part... That is not even a _bug_, that is a usage error. Have you ever used BSD sockets in most other OS:es? It's up to you to handle connection timeouts. TCP/IP over the globe, and over slow/delayed networks will sometime cause big delays, so you can't just abort within a milli-second each time. The other stuff is about developer environment specific stuff, and of them only one is a real bug.. (The crash of the layout editor, which I agree is serious, but I never used it myself so I don't know if it affects many people..) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
I am agree with Hermo. Considering Android is fast growing project, that is a quite bug-free project. Actually, there is no bug-free software in the world. On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 1:49 PM, hermo hermanag...@gmail.com wrote: I think I'll rather live with some bugs in the SDK than do without it. Overall I think its very good and productive. I also appreciate the fact that it includes features that might be seen as prototypes; I'm a developer I can deal with it, I can decide myself what I want to use. I never worked with iPhone, so I don't know how it compares. But if their SDK is (perceived as) higher quality , to me that can only mean that they rather hold back on features, than risk getting bad press for quality issues. They may also hold back on features for other reasons, of course. For normal (and closed) software, it's probably a good strategy to be a bit feature conservative. But for me, I'd say if it's useful, then release it. If it's buggy/prototype, then warn me about it, but let me choose. Don't hold back just cause you think i'm not able to handle it. I know all software has bugs, and I can decide myself if something is worth using or not, thank you very much. But again, I don't think the Android SDK has any quality issues worth moaning about. Some minor bugs here and there, nothing major. My $0.02. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.comandroid-developers%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -- Regards, Michael Leung http://www.itblogs.info http://www.michaelleung.info -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
I would guess that at most there is 10 to 15 maybe less Google employees in this Android team. Sorry, but you have no clue about this. Well do we have to push you far to have a sneak peak of what is really going on inside google's quarters :D Don't be sorry, you are right I had no clue, that's exactly why I gave what I hoped was a very low count just to have someone react :) I don't think you really have an idea of what all is involved in making such a product Oh believe me I do and I have a lot of empathy, I swear :) When you out the two spoke-persons you're only left with Romain and Dianne :D Also, Romain and I are not spoke-persons. Sorry I think you misread me or that my english sucks more than I thought(I vote for the later), I meant that you are the only two engineers left in the team if we take out the two spoke-persons of the team. We take our spare time to spend on this group. And I assure you that this does not goes under the radar. We notice it and we really appreciate it. That's why I cited your names as some kind of weird aknowledgement. I can't hold it against an engineer for not posting here. Well you can't but we can. You engineers are the one making things happening. You know the ins and outs of the beast, we don't. We have to guess using the documentation(sigh) you provide. When you give advice or definitive answers here, it really helps. I think that is the limit of a commercial company working on open source. Since the team is payed to work on it and it's not written in their contract they should help the community, most just don't because it is more work. Having to explain thing to us Android Illiterates seems like a burden and I understand that. And again that's why I, among other really really appreciate your presence here. I would have loved to see the despair in the eyes of Romain Guy or No, that is not how it works. Again just teasing here to try to get an answer, but Xavier said it in the current last message of this thread : We're trying to make the layout editor usable. Layout editor which is present from day one in the eclipse framework. You have to admit that it feels to us rushed out the door. And I was just hopelessly trying to make up a good excuses...Bosses are always a good excuse :D unreasonable to complain like this about something you are not paying anything for. You do realize that with no easy tools to work on the Framework you would have no developpers at all filling the Market with crapwares ? Beside to be honest, I'd rather pay $200 for a software that works with no glitches, and have support and bugs fixed quickly by a dedicated team, than no service at all and half cooked software that will probably someday be fixed. Although to be completely fair with the developer tools team, I never had a problem with this part of Android. I actually find it pretty stable. Let's make it clear because I intend to stay : I love Android, i love the idea behind Android, I love small startrek devices that knows your friends, your location, can make calls, take photos and videos, share them from where ever we are, tell you what that building is, find your way home(or away from home :), sing you songs while recording the pace at wich you runYou get the idea !! I believe it is only a communication problem. We can't get in touch with the Android Team, so the Android team should make it part of their daily job to get in touch with us. A four liner in an Android Developement blog from anyone inside the team feeling like it : Just finished implementing the buttonview in the new layout editor : Feeewww only 18 more widgets to go. Would make great wonders. you'd get supportive comments and all. Dianne, I promise i'll be your first cheerleader :DDD Keep up the work and keep us posted. Sorry for the length of the answer :s Yahel -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
Also, we have been accepting an increasing number of patches from the community. I have regularly been reviewing and accepting multiple patches every week, as have other framework engineers. Ok, i'm no C or C++ developper so I can't help you here... BUT ... Where is the git module and fake but consistent DataSet for the Android Market ?? Give us those and you'll get a HUGE number of patches to review and integrate :D I'm not kidding here, why wouldn't you open source the market, not the data from the market but the market source itself. I assure you that there is nothing here patentable or worth of competitors envy :D No really could that be possible ? Yahel -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
I think I'll rather live with some bugs in the SDK than do without it. Overall I think its very good and productive. I also appreciate the fact that it includes features that might be seen as prototypes; I'm a developer I can deal with it, I can decide myself what I want to use. I never worked with iPhone, so I don't know how it compares. But if their SDK is (perceived as) higher quality , to me that can only mean that they rather hold back on features, than risk getting bad press for quality issues. They may also hold back on features for other reasons, of course. For normal (and closed) software, it's probably a good strategy to be a bit feature conservative. But for me, I'd say if it's useful, then release it. If it's buggy/prototype, then warn me about it, but let me choose. Don't hold back just cause you think i'm not able to handle it. I know all software has bugs, and I can decide myself if something is worth using or not, thank you very much. But again, I don't think the Android SDK has any quality issues worth moaning about. Some minor bugs here and there, nothing major. My $0.02. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On Jun 7, 11:13 am, TreKing treking...@gmail.com wrote: Q: Why is Android so buggy? A: Because it's software - simple as that. My software isn't that buggy. Neither is the iphone. You compared Android to every existing piece of software there is? No, but in my 16 years of commercial software development experience I have never come across any other piece of software that has so many serious bugs that are apparently not being addressed. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 7:50 PM, blahblah...@gmail.com blahblah...@gmail.com wrote: On Jun 7, 11:13 am, TreKing treking...@gmail.com wrote: Q: Why is Android so buggy? A: Because it's software - simple as that. My software isn't that buggy. Neither is the iphone. You compared Android to every existing piece of software there is? No, but in my 16 years of commercial software development experience I have never come across any other piece of software that has so many serious bugs that are apparently not being addressed. Its Open Source, fix it! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -- Toni Menzel Independent Software Developer Professional Profile: http://okidokiteam.com t...@okidokiteam.com http://www.ops4j.org - New Energy for OSS Communities - Open Participation Software. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 12:50 PM, blahblah...@gmail.com blahblah...@gmail.com wrote: My software isn't that buggy. Neither is the iphone. No developer thinks their own software is that buggy - users usually disagree =P And the iPhone has the luxury of having been out for some time now and being much more controlled that they're probably a bit more stable than Android. Android is evolving very rapidly. Any system being iterated on at this pace is bound to have issues - it's part of the software development process. Besides, buggy is in the eye of the beholder - depending on who you talk to you your software could be considered quite buggy as could the iPhone, both of which are pretty much guaranteed to have bugs. It just matters how serious they are and who is being affected by them. The bugs you mentioned, for example, I've never run into or have had any problems with. No, but in my 16 years of commercial software development experience I have never come across any other piece of software that has so many serious bugs that are apparently not being addressed. I'll bet good sums of money that the Android team, like any software team is subject to time, budget, and resource restrictions which limits how much they can do in a given amount of time and forces them to prioritize which bugs to fix and features to add. The bugs you've encountered, I assume, are not deemed to be of high enough priority to deal with at the moment, if at all. If they bother you that much, as Toni state, it's open source - fix the issues that bother you and contribute to the project. - TreKing - Chicago transit tracking app for Android-powered devices http://sites.google.com/site/rezmobileapps/treking -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
Re: iPhone - Apple also has the luxury of controlling both the hardware and the software. Don't know how much is involved in porting Android to various phones, but given that they don't have the same identical hardware, it's got to be a pretty involved process. Add to that phone manufacturers each wanting to have their own software and hardware tweaks to make their product stand out. Also, this is embedded software, and it's very different by its very nature. Despite this, Android teams managed to come up with an architecture that feels pretty close to a desktop operating system for the developers. This, I think is quite an achievement by itself. So my personal opinion is - overall, it's a freakin' miracle it works as well as it does! This is despite having run into a few issues that I hope will get fixed some day. -- Kostya 07.06.2010 22:32, TreKing ?: On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 12:50 PM, blahblah...@gmail.com mailto:blahblah...@gmail.com blahblah...@gmail.com mailto:blahblah...@gmail.com wrote: My software isn't that buggy. Neither is the iphone. No developer thinks their own software is that buggy - users usually disagree =P And the iPhone has the luxury of having been out for some time now and being much more controlled that they're probably a bit more stable than Android. Android is evolving very rapidly. Any system being iterated on at this pace is bound to have issues - it's part of the software development process. Besides, buggy is in the eye of the beholder - depending on who you talk to you your software could be considered quite buggy as could the iPhone, both of which are pretty much guaranteed to have bugs. It just matters how serious they are and who is being affected by them. The bugs you mentioned, for example, I've never run into or have had any problems with. No, but in my 16 years of commercial software development experience I have never come across any other piece of software that has so many serious bugs that are apparently not being addressed. I'll bet good sums of money that the Android team, like any software team is subject to time, budget, and resource restrictions which limits how much they can do in a given amount of time and forces them to prioritize which bugs to fix and features to add. The bugs you've encountered, I assume, are not deemed to be of high enough priority to deal with at the moment, if at all. If they bother you that much, as Toni state, it's open source - fix the issues that bother you and contribute to the project. - TreKing - Chicago transit tracking app for Android-powered devices http://sites.google.com/site/rezmobileapps/treking -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -- Kostya Vasilev -- WiFi Manager + pretty widget -- http://kmansoft.wordpress.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
It seems that Android is very buggy I think the reason is the one thing that no one ever talks about : When we think google we think HUGE company. So we think of the Android Team as A TEAM, like 50 or 150 persons maybe... But I really get the feeling that Google isn't quite putting so much resources into Android. Nor in any of its services for that matter. I would guess that at most there is 10 to 15 maybe less Google employees in this Android team. When you out the two spoke-persons you're only left with Romain and Dianne :D I bet the GWT team or the Google Groups team are just as small. I would have loved to see the despair in the eyes of Romain Guy or Dianne when the boss came and said : You know that part time Androithingy you are working on ? Well I said to my boss we were realeasing it next friday. You Ok with that ?? :D Anyway, I have to admit I have the same feeling of little bit undercook(rare) framework, but hey, we can play with it and even make a little money out of spare time :) Yahel -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 2:24 PM, Yahel kaye...@gmail.com wrote: When we think google we think HUGE company. So we think of the Android Team as A TEAM, like 50 or 150 persons maybe... I am proud to be on the C team. I would guess that at most there is 10 to 15 maybe less Google employees in this Android team. When you out the two spoke-persons you're only left with Romain and Dianne :D Sorry, but you have no clue about this. We had that number of engineers early on in the development of Android. Today that is more along the lines of just the framework team. I don't think you really have an idea of what all is involved in making such a product, between engineering on the kernel/system-level software and hardware support/bringup, framework development and maintenance, all of the applications, development tools, server-side development, everything involved with Market (app, server, web interface, billing, etc), QA, interacting with hardware manufacturers, developer support, etc. Also, Romain and I are not spoke-persons. We take our spare time to spend on this group. You will see many more people posting to the blog or visible elsewhere; I can't hold it against an engineer for not posting here. I would have loved to see the despair in the eyes of Romain Guy or Dianne when the boss came and said : You know that part time Androithingy you are working on ? Well I said to my boss we were realeasing it next friday. You Ok with that ?? :D No, that is not how it works. We actually have schedules, plans, feature lists, milestones, etc. Of course they can often change, but that's just reality. Responding to the original poster: almost all of the issues listed were development tools issues, not Android system issues. (I'm not sure about the socket thing, if that is just an emulator issue or an issue on devices. I know that networking is very complicated on these devices because of telephony and such; but this isn't my area so I don't know much more.) The layout editor is a work in progress, and is available in its current form to help if it is useful, but is not intended to be taken as a complete product. For the screen not unlocking... I think if you set the option to not turn off the screen, and don't exit the emulator, you won't have that problem. I would consider this more a feature request (that is additional behavior as a convenience beyond the regular shipping device behavior) than a bug. Our developer tools team is admittedly fairly small, and has done an amazing job with the people they have. Also most of the stuff related to these issues are in the open-source tree, so if they are trivial issues someone could probably contribute a patch. I don't want to say the trite it is open source so if there is a bug you can fix it... but, we don't charge any money for any of the tools or most other stuff, so it is also a little unreasonable to complain like this about something you are not paying anything for. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
Yeah, I also get the feeling that Google simply doesn't put enough resources into Android. It's unrealistic to expect the open source community to fix all the bugs. Chrome seems to be having similar issues. It's a shame because I really like the idea of Android and it could be amazing if they put a bit more effort into it. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
Dianne, On 06/07/2010 11:51 PM, Dianne Hackborn wrote: Our developer tools team is admittedly fairly small, and has done an amazing job with the people they have. Also most of the stuff related to these issues are in the open-source tree, so if they are trivial issues someone could probably contribute a patch. I don't want to say the trite it is open source so if there is a bug you can fix it... but, we don't charge any money for any of the tools or most other stuff, so it is also a little unreasonable to complain like this about something you are not paying anything for. IMO you have and are still doing an impressive job. The open nature of Android makes it a real and worthy challenge. For people like me who mainly work with FLOSS (and this isn't only about money), the other brand cathedral, although also impressive, looks like a scary everything-is-under-control blackbox. This openness is your strength, and I think that it will lead to success if you manage to build an active community of contributors. I'm not monitoring this closely, but it looks like it is not the case (yet). I don't know all the reasons for this, but for example, when you release Android 2.2 before you open-source it, you are not respecting one of the most basic rules of FLOSS, and thus may be giving yourself a bad reputation amongst potential contributors. For instance, how could someone feel like working on patch if the Git head is hidden? I mean, if you are to be the Bazaar in front of the Cathedral, then really do it, because the competition isn't faking. -- Olivier -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 3:21 PM, Olivier Guilyardi l...@samalyse.com wrote: For instance, how could someone feel like working on patch if the Git head is hidden? Since most of the bugs mentioned in the original email are developer tools, I'll just say this: development for the SDK tools is done 100% in the open (since about mid-april, IIRC). In fact the patch submitted for the first bug is here: https://review.source.android.com/#change,15144 and the change merge in the git project is here: http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/sdk.git;a=commit;h=6f71099ece08673670fdc7f88b7d4959f657293b We are still in the process of publishing (writing actually) documents about how/what to contribute (now that the new http://source.android.com is live it's going to be easier), but that has not stopped us from accepting contributions (it is just harder for you to know what to contribute) If you are serious about contributing, please consider starting a thread on android-contrib about what you're looking to contribute. Xav -- Xavier Ducrohet Android SDK Tech Lead Google Inc. Please do not send me questions directly. Thanks! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On 06/08/2010 12:36 AM, Xavier Ducrohet wrote: On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 3:21 PM, Olivier Guilyardi l...@samalyse.com wrote: For instance, how could someone feel like working on patch if the Git head is hidden? Since most of the bugs mentioned in the original email are developer tools, I'll just say this: development for the SDK tools is done 100% in the open (since about mid-april, IIRC). That's right, but since the original poster seemed to be speaking about Android in general, I didn't feel like getting off-topic by expanding the discussion to the OS. In fact the patch submitted for the first bug is here: https://review.source.android.com/#change,15144 and the change merge in the git project is here: http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/sdk.git;a=commit;h=6f71099ece08673670fdc7f88b7d4959f657293b We are still in the process of publishing (writing actually) documents about how/what to contribute (now that the new http://source.android.com is live it's going to be easier), but that has not stopped us from accepting contributions (it is just harder for you to know what to contribute) If you are serious about contributing, please consider starting a thread on android-contrib about what you're looking to contribute. I already contributed to a number of other free/open source projects, but I don't have time to contribute to Android right now. I was just expressing some of my worries, hoping you may take them into account in the future. -- Olivier -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On 06/08/2010 12:46 AM, Olivier Guilyardi wrote: On 06/08/2010 12:36 AM, Xavier Ducrohet wrote: On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 3:21 PM, Olivier Guilyardi l...@samalyse.com wrote: For instance, how could someone feel like working on patch if the Git head is hidden? Since most of the bugs mentioned in the original email are developer tools, I'll just say this: development for the SDK tools is done 100% in the open (since about mid-april, IIRC). That's right, but since the original poster seemed to be speaking about Android in general, I didn't feel like getting off-topic by expanding the discussion to the OS. In fact the patch submitted for the first bug is here: https://review.source.android.com/#change,15144 and the change merge in the git project is here: http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/sdk.git;a=commit;h=6f71099ece08673670fdc7f88b7d4959f657293b We are still in the process of publishing (writing actually) documents about how/what to contribute (now that the new http://source.android.com is live it's going to be easier), but that has not stopped us from accepting contributions (it is just harder for you to know what to contribute) If you are serious about contributing, please consider starting a thread on android-contrib about what you're looking to contribute. I already contributed to a number of other free/open source projects, but I don't have time to contribute to Android right now. I was just expressing some of my worries, hoping you may take them into account in the future. Ah, actually I did submit a rather appreciated patch for issue #2828 ;) -- Olivier -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
At the risk of thread hijacking I'd like to personally thank Diane and Romain for their posts, blogs, and articles without which my development efforts would have been that much harder. I'd have to add Mark Murphy into that too. So from one random developer, for what its worth, thanks for your community support. Sean Overby On Jun 7, 5:51 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 2:24 PM, Yahel kaye...@gmail.com wrote: When we think google we think HUGE company. So we think of the Android Team as A TEAM, like 50 or 150 persons maybe... I am proud to be on the C team. I would guess that at most there is 10 to 15 maybe less Google employees in this Android team. When you out the two spoke-persons you're only left with Romain and Dianne :D Sorry, but you have no clue about this. We had that number of engineers early on in the development of Android. Today that is more along the lines of just the framework team. I don't think you really have an idea of what all is involved in making such a product, between engineering on the kernel/system-level software and hardware support/bringup, framework development and maintenance, all of the applications, development tools, server-side development, everything involved with Market (app, server, web interface, billing, etc), QA, interacting with hardware manufacturers, developer support, etc. Also, Romain and I are not spoke-persons. We take our spare time to spend on this group. You will see many more people posting to the blog or visible elsewhere; I can't hold it against an engineer for not posting here. I would have loved to see the despair in the eyes of Romain Guy or Dianne when the boss came and said : You know that part time Androithingy you are working on ? Well I said to my boss we were realeasing it next friday. You Ok with that ?? :D No, that is not how it works. We actually have schedules, plans, feature lists, milestones, etc. Of course they can often change, but that's just reality. Responding to the original poster: almost all of the issues listed were development tools issues, not Android system issues. (I'm not sure about the socket thing, if that is just an emulator issue or an issue on devices. I know that networking is very complicated on these devices because of telephony and such; but this isn't my area so I don't know much more.) The layout editor is a work in progress, and is available in its current form to help if it is useful, but is not intended to be taken as a complete product. For the screen not unlocking... I think if you set the option to not turn off the screen, and don't exit the emulator, you won't have that problem. I would consider this more a feature request (that is additional behavior as a convenience beyond the regular shipping device behavior) than a bug. Our developer tools team is admittedly fairly small, and has done an amazing job with the people they have. Also most of the stuff related to these issues are in the open-source tree, so if they are trivial issues someone could probably contribute a patch. I don't want to say the trite it is open source so if there is a bug you can fix it... but, we don't charge any money for any of the tools or most other stuff, so it is also a little unreasonable to complain like this about something you are not paying anything for. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 3:21 PM, Olivier Guilyardi l...@samalyse.com wrote: This openness is your strength, and I think that it will lead to success if you manage to build an active community of contributors. I'm not monitoring this closely, but it looks like it is not the case (yet). Development has increasingly moved to the open. Unlike many open-source projects, we have a lot of complications that make it very difficult to just throw everything into the open: from the fact that in many countries you can't file patents after any information about them is publicly available, to needing to work with hardware manufacturers on major new features that are important for them to control the PR around for their devices. Development tools, Dalvik, and other things are now done in the open. There is increasing desire to have the framework done in the open, but this is challenging because it will by necessity mean we need to be working in two branches, to continue to keep sensitive work private until it can be released. Given that we also are often working on two more more active internal branches (for the current release under test, the next release in development, and often the next release after that), the development process for having yet another active branch (with all the corresponding merge issues and correctly deciding which branch X work should go in) is... not pleasant to contemplate. Also, we have been accepting an increasing number of patches from the community. I have regularly been reviewing and accepting multiple patches every week, as have other framework engineers. This is slacking off a bit as we wait for the froyo drop, but I am sure it will pick up again. Most patches don't need to be done on the very most recent head. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
I think we all appreciate the work that Google has done in open- sourcing Android. Like Olivier says, most of us don't have the time to spend in fixing open source bugs. Most of the bugs mentioned admittedly are easily worked around. The only serious ones are the socket ioexception bugs, but these may just be in the emulator. It would just be nice if Google could employ a few more people to go through the bug list and really look at the serious bugs to try and get them under control. That sdk setup.exe bug is a good example: apparently Xavier thought it was fixed, and yet it is been listed as an open bug since January 2010 (issue 5944). Oh, and while we're on the subject of wish-lists, the documentation needs work in many places. Apple has a useful feature - on the bottom of all of their documentation web pages there is a 'feedback' link allowing you to report bugs and missing information in the documentation. It would be useful if the Android docs had something similar. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 4:04 PM, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: Dalvik [is] now done in the open. Actually, we're not developing in the open yet, but we are working toward it. It is nontrivial to get there for all the reasons you cite. -dan -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On 06/08/2010 01:04 AM, Dianne Hackborn wrote: On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 3:21 PM, Olivier Guilyardi l...@samalyse.com mailto:l...@samalyse.com wrote: This openness is your strength, and I think that it will lead to success if you manage to build an active community of contributors. I'm not monitoring this closely, but it looks like it is not the case (yet). Development has increasingly moved to the open. Unlike many open-source projects, we have a lot of complications that make it very difficult to just throw everything into the open: from the fact that in many countries you can't file patents after any information about them is publicly available, to needing to work with hardware manufacturers on major new features that are important for them to control the PR around for their devices. Okay, I'm not a free software fanatic, but I'm going to tell you right away (something that you may already know): a big part of the free software community is likely to consider these reasons as unacceptable. I do understand these reasons though, but I also know the community, and it's not without reason that one of the most widely used tool is named Subversion... Development tools, Dalvik, and other things are now done in the open. There is increasing desire to have the framework done in the open, but this is challenging because it will by necessity mean we need to be working in two branches, to continue to keep sensitive work private until it can be released. Given that we also are often working on two more more active internal branches (for the current release under test, the next release in development, and often the next release after that), the development process for having yet another active branch (with all the corresponding merge issues and correctly deciding which branch X work should go in) is... not pleasant to contemplate. I think that your problem is that the whole of Android is too monolithic. You are mentioning branches where you could think in terms of standalone modules. If you were to make it more modular then you could get a boost in contributions. For example, let's take Dalvik, it's a great VM. So why isn't that included in Debian/Ubuntu for example, why can't I: aptitude install dalvik? Whereas WebKit *is*. There even are python bindings. Do you get my point? With modularity, you could maybe safely turn non-sensitive modules into standalone projects, which could be used outside of Android. And that could result in wider interest. Also, we have been accepting an increasing number of patches from the community. I have regularly been reviewing and accepting multiple patches every week, as have other framework engineers. This is slacking off a bit as we wait for the froyo drop, but I am sure it will pick up again. Most patches don't need to be done on the very most recent head. That sounds good indeed. -- Olivier -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Olivier Guilyardi l...@samalyse.com wrote: I think that your problem is that the whole of Android is too monolithic. You are mentioning branches where you could think in terms of standalone modules. monolithic? Have you looked at git.source.android.com ? There are over 150 projects which are exactly modules. When Dianne refer to branches she talks about release branches. Work for froyo, gingerbread and what comes after must be in different branches. Although, some other projects can have their own branch strategy: branching for sdk.git is now split from the rest of the platform, and we follow our own release schedule, this is likely to happen for other projects that move to the open. For example, let's take Dalvik, it's a great VM. So why isn't that included in Debian/Ubuntu for example, why can't I: aptitude install dalvik? Dalvik is its own module already. As to why it's not in Debian/Ubuntu, you can talk to these guys. It's up to them to include it, not us. Whereas WebKit *is*. There even are python bindings. Do you get my point? With modularity, you could maybe safely turn non-sensitive modules into standalone projects, which could be used outside of Android. And that could result in wider interest. We *have* modularity, we *are* moving non-sensitive projects to the open (as Dan said Dalvik is working toward moving to the open). It's not like we don't want to do all this stuff. It's just that it's a huge projects (or a huge number of projects if you prefer), and there's some inertia in the way we've been doing things and it's going to take us a while to improve, but it *is* happening. Xav -- Xavier Ducrohet Android SDK Tech Lead Google Inc. Please do not send me questions directly. Thanks! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
On 06/08/2010 01:48 AM, Xavier Ducrohet wrote: On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Olivier Guilyardi l...@samalyse.com wrote: I think that your problem is that the whole of Android is too monolithic. You are mentioning branches where you could think in terms of standalone modules. monolithic? Have you looked at git.source.android.com ? There are over 150 projects which are exactly modules. Yes, I looked there many times, and often got lost browsing the projects list at the git root ;) When Dianne refer to branches she talks about release branches. Work for froyo, gingerbread and what comes after must be in different branches. Okay, official releases imply branches of course. Although, some other projects can have their own branch strategy: branching for sdk.git is now split from the rest of the platform, and we follow our own release schedule, this is likely to happen for other projects that move to the open. For example, let's take Dalvik, it's a great VM. So why isn't that included in Debian/Ubuntu for example, why can't I: aptitude install dalvik? Dalvik is its own module already. As to why it's not in Debian/Ubuntu, you can talk to these guys. It's up to them to include it, not us. For what it's worth, one my apps got included in several Linux distribs a couple of month right after the first release, without me asking for anything. It was a much simpler project of course, but it looked like a flexible standalone app. And even if getting open, Dalvik doesn't yet /look/ like that, although it could. Whereas WebKit *is*. There even are python bindings. Do you get my point? With modularity, you could maybe safely turn non-sensitive modules into standalone projects, which could be used outside of Android. And that could result in wider interest. We *have* modularity, we *are* moving non-sensitive projects to the open (as Dan said Dalvik is working toward moving to the open). Then maybe that it's just a matter presenting things as standalone projects, not just git projects. A matter of communication. Right now, it all looks, or better said, feels, like a whole big project. It's not like we don't want to do all this stuff. It's just that it's a huge projects (or a huge number of projects if you prefer), and there's some inertia in the way we've been doing things and it's going to take us a while to improve, but it *is* happening. Okay, I'll look forward into it. Anyway, that was just my $0.99 ideas ;) Thanks and keep up the good work! -- Olivier -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Why is Android so buggy?
Like Olivier says, most of us don't have the time to spend in fixing open source bugs. What do you think the free phones are for. Did you really think they were free. Steve -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
