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blog/posts/2024-05-15-Minimalist-mobile-app-development.html.draft
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| <p> | ||
| I decided to make a mobile app for a project, and was interested in the | ||
| options out there for cross-platform development. In particular, I'm | ||
| interested in minimizing the effort required to maintain it over time and | ||
| maximizing the amount of code that can be reused across Android, iOS, web, | ||
| and native solutions. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| For some background, I was a core engineer working in Amazon and AWS's | ||
| Builder Tools organization, and helped define and maintain the underlying | ||
| build infrastructure for projects like Amazon's retail shopping app, its | ||
| Kindle app, and its Twitch app. Mobile development has not been a career | ||
| focus of mine, but my work in infrastructure and Amazon's software ecosystem | ||
| has facilitated faster iteration for apps that you may use in your day-to-day | ||
| life. I've even spoken at internal conferences in Amazon specifically to | ||
| demonstrate how to build mobile applications (the Amazon way). In other | ||
| words, I've got more than a passing acquaintance. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <h2>First, some rejects</h2> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| My goals may not be your goals, so don't take these suggestions as gospel. | ||
| I don't have unlimited time or an unlimited budget for engineering talent, | ||
| I am limiting my investment to just my own spare time. I'm also not doing | ||
| anything that needs fast-rendering pixel-perfect graphics (Maybe then I'd use | ||
| <a href='https://love2d.com'>LÖVE</a>). | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| Flutter is an attractive option. I love the Dart programming language and it | ||
| comes with a large community that's reaching maturity. It also comes with a | ||
| large package ecosystem with ready-to-go integrations for fiddly things like | ||
| accepting in-app payments or integrating with advertisers. Those are not | ||
| clear goals of mine though. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| Generating a simple "hello world" Flutter app instantly filled me with dread, | ||
| though. Gradle files, Xcode projects, CMakeLists.txt, and multiple | ||
| sub-projects for each target. This instantly put Flutter out of reach for me | ||
| and my smaller-scale ambitions. Each of those build systems to me represent a | ||
| tower of dependencies and moving parts to keep updated over time, and much of | ||
| the platform-specific code appears non-trivial. I'm not opposed to the | ||
| systems (at least, not for the right price), but it's going way over my | ||
| budget for time and effort, especially over time. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| React Native is another attractive option, but again, my tolerance for <a | ||
| href='https://npmgraph.js.org/?q=react-native%2C+react-native-web'>a large | ||
| tower of dependencies</a> is low. If possible, I only want to have a handful | ||
| of reasons to require updates. Changes to the OS or the store are impossible | ||
| to avoid, but changes to (at the time of writing) 536 dependencies are | ||
| certainly possible to avoid. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| Other options like Xamarin, Iconic, or Electron are either delivering too few | ||
| platforms or too many dependencies for my goals. Perhaps in a few years I'll | ||
| choose <a href='https://tauri.app'>Tauri</a>, but it's not ready for mobile | ||
| yet. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <h2>Fyne, I'll do it already</h2> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| I've settled on <a href='https://fyne.io'>Fyne</a> as a framework I can work | ||
| with. I don't know what the possible lower bounds on minimalism can be in | ||
| the cross-platform world, but it comes with <a href='https://github.com/fyne-io/fyne/blob/d8e9fe02c9bb9e4b4c42778f5cae8ffcc43f36e2/go.mod'> | ||
| an order of magnitude fewer dependencies</a> than React Native. In going | ||
| through a similar "hello world" app, it becomes clear that the amount of code | ||
| reuse between platforms will be very high. There is no extra build | ||
| boilerplate like Gradle/Xcode/CMakeLists.txt to maintain. (Again, my goals | ||
| may not be your goals, some projects will require the level of detail and | ||
| optimization that can only be achieved with complex build procedures.) | ||
| As a bonus, the Go programming language has a fantastic track record of | ||
| backwards compatibility with previous versions of Go. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <h2>Minimalist Android Setup</h2> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| The rest of this article will be notes on my development setup. As a warning, | ||
| I prefer to work very minimally and to stick with text interfaces (CLIs, etc) | ||
| that lend to automation, and I tend to prefer avoiding GUI-based interactions | ||
| for software development whenever possible. If you're more of a GUI person, I | ||
| recommend following Fyne's <a href='https://docs.fyne.io/started/'>Getting | ||
| Started</a> guide. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <h3>1. Dev environment</h3> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| First I setup a fresh Ubuntu machine specifically for app development. You | ||
| don't <em>have to</em> do this separation, but with all the fiddliness I've | ||
| experienced with Android in particular, I want to constrain resources (like | ||
| disk usage) and avoid interfering unexpectedly with my primary system. I | ||
| primarily use Void Linux, but there's a little better support for Android | ||
| specifically from Ubuntu. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| Originally I was working with Ubuntu in a QEMU VM on a local network host, | ||
| and was able to get as far as emulation and successfully uploading an APK to | ||
| a physical android phone. The phone was connected to my laptop via USB, and | ||
| my laptop connected to the VM over Wi-Fi from a different room while watching | ||
| a toddler. It's 2024 and it feels like almost anything is possible. The lag | ||
| on input was bothering me, though, so I changed to Ubuntu on a cheap mini PC | ||
| running XRDP for a remote connection and it's a lot snappier. I'm not really | ||
| breaking the bank, just a small machine with about 8GB RAM and lotsa storage. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <h3>2. Dev dependencies</h3> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| Next I setup the system with Go, GCC, graphics headers, and Go libraries. The | ||
| initiated are going to understand this means | ||
| <a href='https://pkg.go.dev/cmd/cgo'>Cgo</a> is in the mix somewhere, and | ||
| we're not dealing with "pure" Go. Personally I understand this as necessary | ||
| when developing cross-platform, although I imagine it will change in the next | ||
| 5 to 10 years. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| Nothing too fancy here for Fyne, I followed the steps from | ||
| <a href='https://docs.fyne.io/started/#prerequisites'>the getting started guide</a>. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| I also installed a text editor (helix), an IDE (VS Code), and the Go language | ||
| server (gopls). I'll use GitHub for controlling revisions of my software over | ||
| time, so some setup in GitHub and on the machine for git was also performed. | ||
| How you'll edit code will come down to some personal choices and go beyond | ||
| the scope of this post. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| A Java Runtime Environment (JRE) will be required for many of the Android | ||
| tooling, so I also installed the most recent LTS version of Java using | ||
| OpenJDK 21's JRE. On Ubuntu, I installed the <code>openjdk-21-jre</code> | ||
| package with <code>apt</code>. I'll only be using Java for android dev tools | ||
| and not for compilation or at runtime, so I don't feel the need to get fancy | ||
| with Temurin or Corretto or some other hardened distribution, or to worry | ||
| about Java build tools like Gradle/Maven/Bld. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <h3>3. Android dependencies</h3> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| Here's where I will diverge from the crowd a bit. I start by installing | ||
| <a href='https://developer.android.com/studio#command-line-tools-only'> | ||
| command line tools</a> only. This download requires a license agreement, | ||
| which is a recurring theme with all android tooling, so I did this through a | ||
| browser to my <code>~/Downloads</code> directory. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <pre> | ||
| cd "$HOME/Downloads" | ||
| unzip commandlinetools-linux-*.zip | ||
| ./cmdline-tools/bin/sdkmanager --sdk_root="$HOME/android" --install 'cmdline-tools;latest' | ||
| </pre> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| Next, I add create an <code>ANDROID_HOME</code> environment variable, and add | ||
| some android binary directories to my shell's <code>PATH</code>. This will | ||
| vary by shell, but will look something like this: | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <pre> | ||
| # Bash | ||
| echo 'export ANDROID_HOME="$HOME/android"' >>~/.bashrc | ||
| echo 'export PATH="$ANDROID_HOME/cmdline-tools/latest/bin:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools:$PATH"' >>~/.bashrc | ||
|
|
||
| # Zsh | ||
| echo 'export ANDROID_HOME="$HOME/android"' >>~/.zshrc | ||
| echo 'export PATH="$ANDROID_HOME/cmdline-tools/latest/bin:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools:$PATH"' >>~/.zshrc | ||
|
|
||
| # Fish | ||
| set -U ANDROID_HOME "$HOME/android" | ||
| set -U fish_user_paths "$ANDROID_HOME/cmdline-tools/latest/bin" "$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools" $fish_user_paths | ||
| </pre> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| Now source the new settings or restart your shell session as necessary. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| This gets far enough to use <code>sdkmanager</code> to start installing the | ||
| other required Android dependencies, and accepting yet more licenses. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <pre> | ||
| sdkmanager --install ndk-bundle | ||
| sdkmanager --install platform-tools | ||
| </pre> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| And, believe it or not that's enough to... | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <h3>4. Get started building an Android app</h3> | ||
|
|
||
| <pre> | ||
| fyne package -os android -appID my.group.MyApp -icon icon.png | ||
| </pre> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| That creates an APK, which is the minimal runnable application for Android. | ||
| To actually run the APK on an android device, you can attach one via USB to | ||
| your development machine. The device needs to <a href='https://developer.android.com/studio/debug/dev-options'> | ||
| allow developer options</a> to upload directly from USB, and we can use | ||
| <code>adb</code> (Android Debug Bridge) from Android's <code>platform-tools</code> | ||
| package to upload the file. | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <pre> | ||
| adb attach | ||
| adb install my_app.apk | ||
| </pre> | ||
|
|
||
| <h3>5. Packaging the Android app for distribution in the Play store</h3> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| Coming soon | ||
| </p> | ||
|
|
||
| <h2>Minimalist iOS Setup</h2> | ||
|
|
||
| <p> | ||
| Coming soon | ||
| </p> |