(转)Android Phones to Allow Full C/C++ Programmability

Nice to see a prediction of mine come true! I suspect that Google has realized that games written in Java do not quite match up to the best games written in C/C++ or Objective-C. There's no doubt that for many types of application Java can match C/C++ for speed but not with high performance games.

Past versions of the NDK have added support for OpenGL ES, debugging capabilities, multiple ABI support, and access to bitmaps in native code. This one now adds access to a native sound buffer and the ability to write directly to window surfaces.

On the Android developer's blog they've announced that with NDK r5, it will be possible to write an entire game in C++ without a single line of Java. The only snag is that it has to be for Gingerbread (Android 2.3 or later) so don't go and buy an Android phone now unless it is definitely 2.3. (Corrected- I had this as 3.0 earlier!)

This version of the NDK also comes with a pre-built version of STLport, making it easier to bring STL-reliant applications to Android. It also adds backwards-compatible support for RTTI, C++ exceptions, wchar_t, and includes improved debugging tools.

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