Smartphones are an integral part of a user’s daily life. Hence, developers must choose the correct programming language that aligns with their business-based software developmental goals.
Businesses can use the best Android app programming languages for marketing their concept to customers and boosting revenue effectively. Choosing compatible programming languages is the first step in developing a scalable, secure, and efficient Android application.
Here are the most popular programming languages to build Android applications.
Kotlin
For natïve developers, Android Studio supports app development using Kotlin. It offers a primary entry point to build seamless Android apps. Kotlin has a concise code syntax and allows businesses to compile the code into native code or JavaScript. It operates on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
Kotlin is an open-source programming language that minimizes development time and efficiently supports operator overloading. It offers a simple and easy-to-learn syntax and allows developers to write clean code—IDEs and Google entirely support it.
The compilation keeps on fluctuating while it has a smaller developer community, but, at the same time, there are limited resources to learn this programming language.
Java
Java’s design has limited dependencies, making the language easy to learn and implement across numerous mobile app development platforms. It is a powerful server-side programming language that supports JavaScript, allowing developers to compile and interpret easily. It offers countless complex programming options- null and checked pointer errors and constructors.
More importantly, Java SDK requires rudimentary knowledge of XML and Gradle, while Java’s community is large and diverse. Java is a core language to begin learning Android app development. When developers encounter complexities in code, online tutorials are available.
It is popular for its code reusability feature and portability. Simultaneously, Java is compatible with VMs, browsers, and different environments. Its interface is explicit, flexible, and portable. On the contrary, Java requires users to pay for commercial licenses. It does not offer extraordinary backup facilities.
C#
C# program is simple, powerful, and popular, resembling a streamlined version of Java. Garbage collection in C# is similar to that in Java; hence, developers need not worry about manually freeing up memory or memory leaks. C# has additional syntax rules than Java.
C# programs are easy to write and use since Microsoft has its tools at every stage of development. Microsoft has numerous IDEs like the Visual Studio community edition. It allows the developers to develop an Android app without extra purchases entirely.
It is modern, scalable, structured, and has a function-rich library. More importantly, it is updateable and interoperable, while its type-safe code ensures security.
On the contrary, C# requires code compilation every time developers need to make changes leading to errors and bugs. Moreover, the utilization of .NET libraries adds to the complexities. Lastly, it requires a Window platform for execution since the language is a part of the .NET framework.
C++/C
Google offers a unique toolset, a native development kit (NDK), and the SDK that employs native programming languages like C and C++ to build Android applications. However, C and C++ would not help create a robust program, and the NDK will allow them to create a native library to utilize in the Java programs.
Developers would find the need to utilize the NDK in most cases. They can write code that actively runs on the device instead of creating code that runs on JVM. It helps developers access the resources- RAM.
The NDK’s design helps developers leverage the maximum benefit during heavy load. C++ and C libraries combine this approach across application programming. These programs are fast to execute while are simple and easy to write and understand.
It has no background garbage collector, and the applications build using these languages can run on any platform with robust hardware benefits. On the contrary, it lacks exceptional handling and run-time checking features with low abstraction.
Python
Developers can look for third-party Python development tools to convert Python programs into packages compatible with Android-based mobile devices. It’s an object-oriented language that allows dynamic binding and typing, making it a good option for building Android apps.
Python makes it simple for developers to translate code. It speeds up the development process as compared to other languages. It minimizes the application development and maintenance costs.
Moreover, developers can build simple and large-sized machine learning (ML) apps, media tools, desktop apps, and web apps. The language offers an extensive library and numerous frameworks. It is suitable for analyzing and computing numeric data and building GUIs using standard libraries.
On the contrary, it requires more time to execute, offers limited data access, and is inefficient with modern mobile application development.
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XML
XML is a markup language that efficiently describes data and introduces various elements making it easier for developers to build Android apps. More importantly, it helps developers to set out the layout images and buttons to define color and font.
It ensures that the encoding documents are easily readable by humans and systems. XML resembles HTML and helps in data transfer and storage. It is platform-independent and supports Unicode, which allows easy transmission of human-written information. Developers can change the stored and transferred data as per choice.
It allows validation with DTD and Schema for error-free syntax while simplifying ways to share the data over multiple platforms. On the contrary, XML does not support an array, while syntax redundancy and large file sizes occupy storage.
Conclusion
The developers can create multiple applications like messengers, music players, and games using the above programming languages. Businesses must understand that there is no explicit language for Android app development. Developers must select the language to resonate with the objectives and preferences of each project.
