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  5. Android Studio vs npm

Android Studio vs npm

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

npm
npm
Stacks137.4K
Followers82.2K
Votes1.6K
GitHub Stars17.6K
Forks3.0K
Android Studio
Android Studio
Stacks25.5K
Followers20.3K
Votes361

Android Studio vs npm: What are the differences?

Introduction

Android Studio and npm are both popular tools used in software development, but they have key differences that set them apart from each other.

  1. Programming Language: Android Studio is mainly used for developing native Android applications and primarily supports the Kotlin and Java programming languages. On the other hand, npm is a package manager for JavaScript and is commonly used in web development projects where JavaScript is the primary programming language.

  2. Platform Compatibility: Android Studio is designed specifically for developing Android applications and is compatible with multiple platforms including Windows, macOS, and Linux. Conversely, npm is a command-line tool that can be used on various platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, for managing JavaScript packages.

  3. IDE Functionality: Android Studio is a full-fledged Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that offers advanced features such as code completion, debugging, and visual layout editors tailored specifically for Android development. Whereas npm is primarily focused on package management and does not provide an integrated development environment like Android Studio; it primarily focuses on package installation, version control, and dependency management.

  4. Project Structure: Android Studio follows a specific project structure for organizing code, resources, and assets, making it easier for developers to navigate and maintain Android projects. In contrast, npm does not enforce any particular project structure as it primarily focuses on managing JavaScript packages and dependencies, allowing developers the flexibility to structure their projects as desired.

  5. Build Tools: Android Studio utilizes Gradle as its build system, which allows for efficient compilation, testing, and deployment of Android applications. Conversely, npm doesn't have its own build system but can be used with other build tools like webpack or gulp to automate tasks and build JavaScript projects.

  6. Documentation and Community Support: Android Studio benefits from extensive documentation, support from the official Android development community, and a wide range of online resources, making it easier for Android developers to access help and assistance. While npm also has documentation and community support, it is primarily focused on JavaScript and web development, so the level of support and availability of resources may vary compared to Android Studio.

In Summary, Android Studio is specialized for native Android development, utilizes Gradle as its build system, and offers advanced IDE features. In contrast, npm is a package manager for JavaScript, does not provide an integrated development environment, and focuses on package management and dependency control for JavaScript projects.

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Advice on npm, Android Studio

StackShare
StackShare

Apr 23, 2019

Needs adviceonNode.jsNode.jsnpmnpmYarnYarn

From a StackShare Community member: “I’m a freelance web developer (I mostly use Node.js) and for future projects I’m debating between npm or Yarn as my default package manager. I’m a minimalist so I hate installing software if I don’t need to- in this case that would be Yarn. For those who made the switch from npm to Yarn, what benefits have you noticed? For those who stuck with npm, are you happy you with it?"

294k views294k
Comments
Mark
Mark

CTO at Gemsotec bvba

Apr 25, 2019

ReviewonReactReactTypeScriptTypeScriptYarnYarn

I use npm because I also mainly use React and TypeScript. Since several typings (from DefinitelyTyped) depend on the React typings, Yarn tends to mess up which leads to duplicate libraries present (different versions of the same type definition), which hinders the Typescript compiler. Npm always resolves to a single version per transitive dependency. At least that's my experience with both.

251k views251k
Comments
Oleksandr
Oleksandr

Senior Software Engineer at joyn

Dec 7, 2019

Decided

As we have to build the application for many different TV platforms we want to split the application logic from the device/platform specific code. Previously we had different repositories and it was very hard to keep the development process when changes were done in multiple repositories, as we had to synchronize code reviews as well as merging and then updating the dependencies of projects. This issues would be even more critical when building the project from scratch what we did at Joyn. Therefor to keep all code in one place, at the same time keeping in separated in different modules we decided to give a try to monorepo. First we tried out lerna which was fine at the beginning, but later along the way we had issues with adding new dependencies which came out of the blue and were not easy to fix. Next round of evolution was yarn workspaces, we are still using it and are pretty happy with dev experience it provides. And one more advantage we got when switched to yarn workspaces that we also switched from npm to yarn what improved the state of the lock file a lot, because with npm package-lock file was updated every time you run npm install, frequent updates of package-lock file were causing very often merge conflicts. So right now we not just having faster dependencies installation time but also no conflicts coming from lock file.

310k views310k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

npm
npm
Android Studio
Android Studio

npm is the command-line interface to the npm ecosystem. It is battle-tested, surprisingly flexible, and used by hundreds of thousands of JavaScript developers every day.

Android Studio is a new Android development environment based on IntelliJ IDEA. It provides new features and improvements over Eclipse ADT and will be the official Android IDE once it's ready.

-
Flexible Gradle-based build system.;Build variants and multiple APK generation.;Expanded template support for Google Services and various device types.;Rich layout editor with support for theme editing.;Lint tools to catch performance, usability, version compatibility, and other problems.;ProGuard and app-signing capabilities.;Built-in support for Google Cloud Platform, making it easy to integrate Google Cloud Messaging and App Engine.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
17.6K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
3.0K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
137.4K
Stacks
25.5K
Followers
82.2K
Followers
20.3K
Votes
1.6K
Votes
361
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 648
    Best package management system for javascript
  • 382
    Open-source
  • 327
    Great community
  • 148
    More packages than rubygems, pypi, or packagist
  • 112
    Nice people matter
Cons
  • 5
    Problems with lockfiles
  • 5
    Bad at package versioning and being deterministic
  • 3
    Node-gyp takes forever
  • 1
    Super slow
Pros
  • 176
    Android studio is a great tool, getting better and bet
  • 103
    Google's official android ide
  • 37
    Intelligent code editor with lots of auto-completion
  • 25
    Its powerful and robust
  • 5
    Easy creating android app
Cons
  • 4
    Huge memory usage
  • 4
    Slow emulator
  • 2
    Complex for begginers
  • 2
    No checking incompatibilities
  • 2
    Using Intellij IDEA, while Intellij IDEA have too
Integrations
No integrations available
Android SDK
Android SDK

What are some alternatives to npm, Android Studio?

PhpStorm

PhpStorm

PhpStorm is a PHP IDE which keeps up with latest PHP & web languages trends, integrates a variety of modern tools, and brings even more extensibility with support for major PHP frameworks.

IntelliJ IDEA

IntelliJ IDEA

Out of the box, IntelliJ IDEA provides a comprehensive feature set including tools and integrations with the most important modern technologies and frameworks for enterprise and web development with Java, Scala, Groovy and other languages.

Visual Studio

Visual Studio

Visual Studio is a suite of component-based software development tools and other technologies for building powerful, high-performance applications.

WebStorm

WebStorm

WebStorm is a lightweight and intelligent IDE for front-end development and server-side JavaScript.

NetBeans IDE

NetBeans IDE

NetBeans IDE is FREE, open source, and has a worldwide community of users and developers.

PyCharm

PyCharm

PyCharm’s smart code editor provides first-class support for Python, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, CSS, popular template languages and more. Take advantage of language-aware code completion, error detection, and on-the-fly code fixes!

Eclipse

Eclipse

Standard Eclipse package suited for Java and plug-in development plus adding new plugins; already includes Git, Marketplace Client, source code and developer documentation. Click here to file a bug against Eclipse Platform.

RubyMine

RubyMine

JetBrains RubyMine IDE provides a comprehensive Ruby code editor aware of dynamic language specifics and delivers smart coding assistance, intelligent code refactoring and code analysis capabilities.

RequireJS

RequireJS

RequireJS loads plain JavaScript files as well as more defined modules. It is optimized for in-browser use, including in a Web Worker, but it can be used in other JavaScript environments, like Rhino and Node. It implements the Asynchronous Module API. Using a modular script loader like RequireJS will improve the speed and quality of your code.

Browserify

Browserify

Browserify lets you require('modules') in the browser by bundling up all of your dependencies.

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