Perl on Android, progressing...
First, the meeting:
I arrived a bit late but hadn't missed much. Gabor was in the middle of explaining the benefits of getting Perl on Android. He went over a lot of API examples, showing code and explaining and doing a damn goo job at it!
After that, I tried to explain how to install the Android emulator on a Linux machine, configure it and run it. My slides weren't displaying properly on the projector so it was annoying to explain and probably harder to understand.
Then Shmuel went over perl512delta and explained to us the bigger differences and their implications. He said "... because someone had to do it" - and I'm happy someone did.
Regarding more Perl on Android:
I've created a github repo for Android Perl scripts in which Gabor and I will be able to go over the API calls, prove what works, what doesn't, discover bugs, fix stuff and even write up examples that hopefully will be merged back into ASE (Android Scripting Environment) - the component that allows Perl to run on Android. You're all welcome to help with that!
I've ported test.py - a script that tests the Android Python support - to test.pl.
Using those tests, I've discovered at least one bug in Android.pm (the module with which you access Android) - fixed here.
Also, using the test I've discovered two more issues, which I've written down here.
Tomorrow I'll be opening tickets with ASE for all of these issues. Once they are solved, I could work on adding test.pl along with Try::Tiny (which it depends on) to ASE sample Perl scripts.
What we still need are more examples which will also uncover more bugs. So.... either with ideas or with actions - care to help?
Gots to do the bloggingz
I actually did some experimentation with Perl on the Droid a few weekends ago and managed to actually get Plack running on it. It took me a little while since there is no CPAN.pm and I had to manually assemble the required modules, but I managed to get this script ( http://gist.github.com/387207 ) running. How useful this actually is I don't know, but it was amusing.
Someone told me about that (Gabor or Miyagawa). That's pretty nifty and helps running Dancer/Mojo on it.
Since right now you do not have access to elaborate GUI on Android in ASE yet, being able to run a webapp will help you write a web-based application with web-based GUI. So that's pretty sweet, IMHO.
Would you mind if I import that gist to my perl-android-scripts repo as an example?
If it goes into core in ASE, you might need to sign a Google contributor license or something like that.
You are welcome to import it, but you need will need to hand install a bunch of modules to make it work, here is the list I compiled as I was doing it.
I also had to make some site specific modifications to Plack which I can't recall a the moment. And lastly in order for it to have an IP address it needed to be attached via Wifi. I was never actually able to get localhost working via the Droid browser.
The biggest problem I had was finding something interesting to do with it. It would be nice if you could get access to the Content Providers or the Data Storage APIs but ASE didn't seem to support that. So like I said, amusing, but not very practical.