Scala, Android and Eclipse

Question

I've started learning Scala, and I... I think I'm in love. I've only coded small test snippets so far, but since I currently working in Android development, what I really want to do is try my hand at writing Android applications in Scala.

I've found articles and questions on the matter, but mostly referring to older versions of the three tools (Android SDK/Scala/Eclipse), so the general question is:

Is anybody coding Android apps in Scala right now, with the latest SDK, Scala 2.9 and Eclipse Indigo? How viable is it?

And, in particular:

1. How's the interaction/integration between Scala's features and the Android library?

2. What's the state of the Scala plugin for Eclipse? I've read all the features you'd expect are there, but I'd like to know first-hand stories, specially about the debugger.

3. How well does the build process (scala to java to dalvik, ant, proguard, etc.) automate?

Thanks!

Answer 1

We are using Scala heavily to test our Android code - you can read a writeup of how we're doing so here. We use Ant or SBT to compile - there's an excellent SBT plugin for Android development.

Having said all of that, I'm not sure that I would recommend Scala for production Android development. In particular Scala 2.9.x is basically unusable as there is no good way to get the libraries to work on Android. You can read about the issue here.

It's a real pity, as Android development would benefit considerably from Scala if we could get it working properly.