Re:The Upcoming Jack and Jill Compilers in Android
by lern_too_spel on Sunday November 30, 2014 @10:01PM
(#8679296)
I don't follow. What does this have to do with reducing the possibility of Java 8 compatibility?
One advantage the Jayce development seems to provide is the possibility of optimizing Dalvik bytecode output based on data that is hard to recover from Java bytecode but present in the Java source. Secondarily, there may be build time improvements, but build times aren't C++ bad.
But my best guess at why they did this is to support Java 8 on older devices. Without Proguard in the build system, they would have to include the entire Java 8 class library subset they plan to support in every build, resulting in massive distributables. By building Proguard into the base build system, they can include just the part of Java 8 that is necessary for the app. Jayce likely has some features that make the Proguard tasks easier.
One advantage the Jayce development seems to provide is the possibility of optimizing Dalvik bytecode output based on data that is hard to recover from Java bytecode but present in the Java source. Secondarily, there may be build time improvements, but build times aren't C++ bad.
But my best guess at why they did this is to support Java 8 on older devices. Without Proguard in the build system, they would have to include the entire Java 8 class library subset they plan to support in every build, resulting in massive distributables. By building Proguard into the base build system, they can include just the part of Java 8 that is necessary for the app. Jayce likely has some features that make the Proguard tasks easier.
I'm speculating far beyond the OP here.