Apps Is Android Studio "dumbed down"?

[Toddykins]

I'm more familiar with making C++ console applications than anything else, but just recently decided to start learning how to make apps. I downloaded Android Studio and was surprised to see how visual and "drag-and-droppy" it seemed to be. I haven't come across this sort of thing in my other IDEs (Edit: Codeblocks, DevCpp), so I was wondering if this was designed to be especially user friendly, or if this is what professional android app development is like. My goal isn't to just make apps, but to gain as much experience as I can.

I've also heard that Eclipse can also be used for app development. Would using Eclipse give me more or less experience than Android Studio?

 

[Deleted User]

What do you mean by 'drag-and-droppy'? Android Studio does have a built in GUI designer, which by nature involves dragging components on to the screen area. This is a good thing because it makes designing the UI fairly simple.

What other IDEs have you used? In my view modern IDEs have made the process of software development much smoother, and more efficient.

In terms of Eclipse vs Android Studio, I've used both. IMO Android Studio is superior. Overall it does a better job, has Gradle built in, which saves you a world of pain in terms of jar dependency hell.

Android Studio is based on the Intellij, a much respected IDE which does a fantastic job.

It's not that these tools are 'dumbed down', rather they easily facilitate the process of software development. In my view the IDE should actually get out of the way, and let me focus on the real work of writing code. Anything that detracts from that is bad, so I would rather these things be as easy to use as possible. That's not to say they sacrifice configurability. There are tons of keyboard shortcuts, if you're really averse to using the mouse. And let's face it, the quickest way to write code is not to take your hands off the keyboard, so that's good.

And Android Studio is the officially recommended IDE for developing Android applications. Nothing to stop you using Eclipse, but as I say, Android Studio, for me is better.

 

[Deleted User]

Oh yes, and one other thing which is absolutely essential in a Java IDE - the ability to navigate between classes at a click. Because Java code is based on packages, the individual files are spread over many nested directories. I do remember the days when I developed Java using nothing but the vi editor and the Unix command line. I would never go back to those days.

 

[Toddykins]

Okay, thanks. It makes sense that it's weird to me because I have little experience with making programs that have GUI. But if I were to get a professional job in the programming world, wouldn't it be looked down upon to rely on the visual aspect rather than text only? I'm not very familiar with Java or XML yet, so I'd initially be more drawn to using my mouse rather than my keyboard. That's why I thought it might be dumbed down, as I was able to make my first app with very little experience using Java or XML.

 

[Deleted User]

Professionals do use these tools to build apps, and yes they do give you a great helping hand. But really all they are doing is the boiler plate code, or grunt work which would be otherwise tedious to do manually.
You can construct XML layout files manually, nothing wrong with that. In fact probably good, to give you better understanding of the structure. I tend to do a mixture of both - sometimes it's quicker to go into the XML and make changes directly, rather than doing it via the properties of the UI editor.