Why Google release the Android CLI
Context, I ditched android studio way before Google did this.
While I was learning android development I relied on android studio, like a lot. I had no other option. It was my place to bootstrap android projects, compose the nav graph, create and edit XML layouts.
But, with the rise in agentic development, Google defined a new world order in android development. Android studio is heavy and all the requirements it comes with. Usually even a 8–10 GB RAM pc would suffer running android studio.
If we look at it from, by zooming out; Android studio is important for critical android specific tasks. These might include but not limited to, layout inspection. The rest can be offloaded of the IDE.
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With the introduction of the Android CLI, we can safely create projects and virtual devices out of android studio and this is just the beginning. Usually launching something like adb can be done without having android studio installed.
Now I use ZED, an agent first lightweight IDE built in rust.
When Rust calls memory isn’t usually the issue. But take a look, Android studio is built on top of the Intellij platform. Which, if am not wrong, sits on a huge tonn of Java/Kotlin source code. Any JVM language requires a small program to clean after it, also known as the Garbage collector.
Easier said than done, the garbage collector is, IMO, by itself garbage. We shouldn’t have this concept at all.
On the other hand, recently Meta contributed their formatter into to the project as the sole primary formatter for Kotlin. I used to use this in the command by running the jar against my codebase, its good now that Google are catching up.
All an IDE ever requires is an efficient formatter and a language server. Thats why android studio, is a studio, not an IDE.
Yeah. These are my remarks. An IDE should not mostly define your mood while starting a project. Sadly a lot of people still complain about android studio constraints.
Stop blaming your tools.
