Why Is Setting Up A Development Environment For Android 2.3 Under Windows So Nightmarish?

Case 1 in question: I have been trying to have a 'pure' 64-bit development environment on Windows 7. It cannot be done. See the two threads here: 64-bit Eclipse won't install .apk

Solution 1:

It sounds like your problem is more related to developing on Windows than the Android SDK itself. I got it up and running pretty quickly on my 64 bit Win7 box, but I really prefer to develop in Linux. Once I sorted some silly issues with eclipse dependencies out, it was incredibly simple to run and keep updated.

I suspect most hardcore android devs (and the people who build the tools at Google) run Linux of some flavor on their boxes - so it isn't surprising that the tools work well there.

Eclipse isn't really the alpha version of websphere - it's a perfectly usable and stable tool in it's own right. Fedora isn't the alpha for RHEL either - it's just more bleeding edge. You can run a perfectly stable Fedora system, but most companies go with RHEL because of the support options.

The Android plugins and SDKs are certainly under active development, which is a good thing. That doesn't necessarily make them Beta quality.

Eclipse is used incredibly widely. It's adequately tested. The Android SDKs work just fine for a majority of users. I'm sorry you had problems with them, but as you admitted, you're running an unusual configuration.

Windows is designed to run with every user as an administrator - Development tools usually assume this, with hardware development tools doubly so. It's a reasonable assumption. Even under Linux, Android development really works better with root access. You're trying to do things with the underlying hardware that normal users shouldn't be able to do.

Solution 2:

If Eclipse is not working out, you have options to "develop" for the Android from the command line.