[Gambas-user] Gambas for Android

[Ian Haywood]

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 3:07 AM, Benoît Minisini
<gambas at ...1...> wrote:

> I don't understand why I had no problem with compiling Gambas on
> Debian/RaspberryPI and you have problems to compile Gambas on Ubuntu
> which is based on Debian. Or not?
android is not based on Debian. It has a heavily-patched linux kernel
and that's about where the connection with linux as we know it stops.
The runtime is totally different: no standard C library, no X, etc. I
think graphics is only available through their Java-based layer
so even if you could get Gambas C++ code to compile to ARM you can't
take Qt/GTK with you: so no graphics.

Plus no package management system as we know it: so users would have
to manually download and install gambas, then download and install
whatever application.

I suspect the only real solution is cross-compiling: i.e, turning
Gambas code into the "dalvik" bytecode instead of gambas bytecode,
plus reimplementing all the Gambas graphics and system APIs to the
Android APIs. Doable, but a crapload of work (basically a full rewrite
of gambas)

I suspect it would be faster to wait for Ubuntu-based tablets and
phones which apparently are coming out "soon" :-)

Ian