Scripting on Android

Did you know you could script for Android? With Python, Lua, and more languages coming? And not just for Android, either... but on Android devices?
Well, you can. A couple of weeks back, the Android Scripting Environment project was discussed and downloads are available now for alpha versions of this application. One frequently cited example as a Lua script that, in under 20 lines of code, allows the phone to be silenced -- or not -- by just flipping it over.
Check out the Android Scripting Environment now for some on-the-go scripting fun!

The Android NDK 1.5 Release 1

Google announced that the Android 1.5 NDK Release 1 is available. No, this isn't another SDK. Instead, it's the Native Development Toolkit, which basically allows developers to use C or C++ for development -- with a whole bunch of limitations.
The gist of the goal of the NDK is to provide a way for CPU-intensive operations to be implemented outside of the Dalvik virtual machine to increase performance. The libraries available are limited and it's not designed to allow development of entire applications using native code.
Read more about it at the Android Developer site.

Choosing an XML Parser for Android

When new versions of the Android SDK come out, I often like to peruse the more detailed changes. A while back, I ran across mention of including the XmlPullParser API for enhanced mobile XML parsing performance. Busy at the time, I didn't do much with it. The curiousity ultimately got the better of me and the result is an article on the XML parser performance comparing the SAX, DOM, and Pull Parser performance on Android. Feedback is welcome via the email address listed at the article.