Clojure on Android

Question

Can I program Android apps in Clojure? Can anyone suggest a good textbook or book, if possible?

Answer 1

Yes, here is the main project I know of: https://github.com/remvee/clojurehelloandroid

And here’s a little tutorial http://riddell.us/ClojureAndAndroidWithEmacsOnUbuntu.html , although I won’t be surprised if this lesson is outdated since it was over a year ago when I played with the code in this lesson and the code has been updated since then.

EDIT: see update here from Stuart Sierra and the Clojure / core group: http://groups.google.com/group/clojure/browse_thread/thread/876c90d3ae353c61

“Clojure 1.2.0 works out of the box on Android, but startup time is still a problem. Some Clojure / kernel members have experimented with ways to do this better, mainly selectively removing things that are not necessary at runtime.

Follow http://dev.clojure.org/display/design/Android+Support for news. The latest update was published by Aaron Hip, a member of Clojure / core, in December 2010. I would not say that it is right now, but no people have lost interest.

I personally would not recommend writing an Android app in Clojure if you intend to release it right away. But if you're interested in experimenting with Clojure on Android and doing it better, then go for it. "

Answer 2

Clojure benefits significantly from the JIT android 2.2 JIT compiler, which greatly improves class loading times. Clojure creates many small classes that “forever” loaded previous versions of Android.

check it out while working on swank plugin for androiding with clojure

Answer 3

A new option for Clojure for Android is ClojureScript .

ClojureScript compiles Clojure into JavaScript, which you can then wrap the application. This completely eliminates Dalvik-VM and avoids load time issues if your application is suitable for javascript. many applications looking for more stringent integration with the platform can not use this approach. If your application can live with tight platform integration, this can save you a lot of time.

Answer 4

I know this is a bit outdated, but just in case someone came across this, clojure on Android has come a long way with the answers above. The lein-droid and Neko projects make it much easier to write complete Android programs using clojure from start to finish.

Answer 5

There was an answer to this question. Yes, this is possible with a few minor hacks. However, the last time I tried it was very slow and very hungry. This was with Clojure 1.1 and Android 2.1. Since then, the situation can be improved.

Answer 6

Find “Clojure REPL”, “Clojure” or “Sattvik Software” in the Android Market and you will find a great REPL. I used it on my XOOM 1 tablet, first with Android 3 and now with Android 4.0 no problem.

If you are zealous enough, you will find programs for Java (Java IDE), Ruby (Ruboto IRB), Python, Lua, Perl, Javascript (SL4J for the last four, also SigmaScript for Lua), ISLisp (tiny ISLispdroid), OCaml (OCaml Toplevel ), Scheme, C, C ++, C #, Pascal, Basic and even Forth!

I'm sorry they still don't have one for Scala!