[erlang-questions] Re: Running Erlang on Android (like running sheep on electricity)

[Jayson Vantuyl]

It appears that there is something that approximates libc on Android  
(even called libc.so). Here's a link to a guy that first built a  
minimal Debian install, then later figured out how to patch a project  
(in this case, Mono) to run natively.

http://www.koushikdutta.com/2009/01/compiling-mono-under-android-build.html

As much as I don't particularly care for what Google has done, Java,  
Python, Ruby, and .NET can run on Android. If Erlang doesn't, I don't  
think the reasons are so much technical as they are more a lack of  
time and desire to do it.  In either case, let's not blame Google.  
That's an unnecessary excuse.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 15, 2010, at 3:56 AM, "Michael Turner" <leap@REDACTED> wrote:

>
> Erlang needs something adequately Unix-like.  Erlang is a C-coded  
> app, so
> you pretty much need some approximation of the standard C library.   
> Does
> Android deliver?
>
> Android is Linux, but not really.  Android is a Java platform.  But  
> not
> even that, in the "write once run anywhere" sense.
>
> http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2009/02/an-introduction-to-google-android-for-developers.ars
>
> "Although Android is built on top of the Linux kernel, the platform  
> has
> very little in common with the conventional desktop Linux stack. In
> fact, during a presentation at the Google IO conference, Google  
> engineer
> Patrick Brady stated unambiguously that Android is not Linux.
>
> "Much of the Android userspace operates within the constraints of
> Dalvik, Google's own custom Java virtual machine. Dalvik uses its own
> bytecode format called Dex, and is not compatible with J2ME or other
> Java runtime environments. Third-party Android applications are  
> written
> in Java using Android's official APIs and widget toolkit. The Android
> SDK includes special compilation tools that will translate Java class
> files into Dex bytecode and generate an installation package that  
> can be
> deployed on Android devices."
>
> Baffled?
>
> Call me a cynic, but have you looked at Google's P/E?  It's
> ridiculously high.  Something's gotta give eventually, and I think
> it'll be the numerator.  But imagine you're high up in Google, with
> lots of stock options.  Of course, you want your options to vest  
> with a
> handsome profit.  But that can't happen if the P part of the P/E drops
> down to something rational and un-exuberant.  So you might promote all
> kinds of unlikely projects if you noticed (and how could you not?)  
> that
> any thrusty new project associated with Google made many investors
> continue to think that Google might have The Next Big Thing.  They all
> want to believe that anyway, of course, but spending what *seems* like
> lots of money signals to those investors that their belief is almost
> certainly justified.
>
> Maybe Ericcson should come out with an Erlang over TRON over ARM, for
> phones.  They could call it Ndroid, right?  When Google sued them for
> that name (a legal move that would do little more than generate  
> valuable
> publicity for Ericsson), they could quickly change the name to
> ARMsTRONg.  (After all, Intel *couldn't* sue them for that -- it's too
> late, Intel gave up on ARM, which they never really wanted anyway,  
> since
> it just came as part of their winnings in some lawsuit.)
>
> Why, yes, I *did* used to work in Silicon Valley until I got sick to
> death of marketing/stock-manipulation/patent-infringement-claim
> headgames.  How did you guess?
>
> -michael
>
> ________________________________________________________________
> erlang-questions mailing list. See http://www.erlang.org/faq.html
> erlang-questions (at) erlang.org
>