Re: Android port of Emacs

[Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev>]

On 18/06/2023 08:31, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2023 04:10:35 +0300
>> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> From: Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev>
>>
>> We shouldn't be afraid to deprecate and remove unmaintained ports. And
>> we shouldn't (like Po already said) delay releases over them.
>>
>> If we had a consensus on that
> 
> This is easier said than done.  In practice, we don't like to release
> knowing that one of the platforms we care about is broken.  In fact, I
> don't think it ever happened, not even with NS (MSDOS is not a
> platform we care about, so it is not relevant.)  We might, of course,
> release a broken port if we are unaware that it's broken, but that's
> not the same thing.

There might be a certain loss of face involved, but it really is better 
to have an Android port of at least some versions of Emacs than not have 
it at all, isn't it?

And if it's broken, we could as well announce that the Android release 
is "not ready" and will probably arrive at some later time [when/if it's 
fixed].

FWIW, I think the important part in this discussion is you and Po arrive 
at some more or less amenable conclusion, and whether the port is 
developed externally or internally is secondary.

It's fairly plausible that Android will become a desktop platform too 
not too far off in the future. Or desktop computing will migrate even 
more toward portable devices. We'll be more prepared either way.

>> I guess the main concern that would remain is whether the Android
>> port complicates the common code enough for it to be noticeable.
> 
> I invite you to review the results of
> 
>    git diff ...origin/feature/android
> 
> and make up your own mind about that.

I took a brief look, but couldn't come to a particular conclusion.

It's a large diff, and not all of it is "common" code. TBF the 
autotools/make additions look the scariest to me, but I'm not sure 
whether that's an objective opinion.

As far as the number/volume of Java files go, I'd recommend not paying 
much attention. Java *is* a verbose language, and at any point in the 
future we'll almost certainly find someone familiar with it (I have 2 
years with it under my belt myself, even if it was a decade ago).