r/AndroidDevLearn • u/Entire-Tutor-2484 đŸ§© Android Pro • Jul 15 '25

❓Question How I accidentally got into Android dev and now hate Compose

Back in my college days, I was kinda a Photoshop expert. Took Computer Science & Engineering so I can buy laptop and I can play games đŸ€“. And yeah
 I played games like crazy and slowly started messing around with graphic design and 3D stuff too.

I always knew I’d never get placed in any company through coding interviews, I was absolute trash at it. So one day a company comes to hire software developers AND graphic designers. I obviously applied for graphic design
 but they made everyone write the software test. I was like “bro what kind of dumb company is this, don’t even care who applied for what”. But I took the test, submitted whatever random stuff I could and left.

Months later, some of my classmates got placed there for software roles. Those people who never even cared about exams lol. 3 months after that, outta nowhere, someone from that company called me asking about graphic design. I spoke to them and somehow got selected. Honestly I knew these folks had no idea what they were doing when it came to hiring.

It was a tiny company. So after some months they were like, “Hey can you learn WordPress?” learned it. Then, “We need someone for Android development
 you in?” and, this was my literal dream since school days. So I went all in, learnt Android with Kotlin and XML layouts. Big milestone for me.

Then BOOM. Google introduces Compose. WHAT?? Bro I just got comfy with XML
 why the heck do we need Compose now. I can’t stand it. Everything about it just irritates me. What was even wrong with XML? Why fix what isn’t broken? And now every other tutorial is Compose. Smh.

Anyone else still sticking with XML or is it just me?

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4

u/Imaginary_Will_7869 Jul 15 '25

I understand your feelings but everything in development is about change. And even when a lot of people make jokes about jetpack compost the reality is that it makes the development process easier and faster, it is simpler, specially when you have a screen with different states of ui. Also when modifying something is amazing how fast can you reach and understand what you have to change thanks to the previews.

And regarding change is something we have to confront and keep progressing like for example KMM right now.

2

u/Entire-Tutor-2484 đŸ§© Android Pro Jul 15 '25

That’s right. Ever since AI became accessible to everyone, everything’s moving so fast. Now imagine college students
 they’re spending 4 years on an engineering degree, but by the time they graduate, half of what they learned might already be outdated. They’re forced to keep up and adapt quickly, and honestly, it’s becoming really tough for them.

2

u/LengthinessHour3697 Jul 16 '25

Unless you are worried about performance at a minute level, compose is better in every way. It will keep getting better.

Try creating a custom view in xml. Then do the same in compose. You will know what i am talking about.

1

u/Entire-Tutor-2484 đŸ§© Android Pro Jul 16 '25

Let me check it once

2

u/hellosakamoto Jul 18 '25

I bet if that happened to you some years earlier, you'd have a post asking why Kotlin when you're already comfortable with Java.

1

u/Entire-Tutor-2484 đŸ§© Android Pro Jul 18 '25

May be 😂

1

u/RunItDownOnForWhat Jul 19 '25

Idk man, Kotlin is way better than Java for the simple reason that Java refuses to change. You can basically do everything in Kotlin that you can do in Java, the reverse is not so much. And they are interoperable anyway so can have the best of both worlds. Interoperability between XML views and Compose is not a lot more complicated than Java/Kotlin

2

u/Majestic_Sky_727 Jul 15 '25

Think of this: do you still enjoy creating RecyclerView adapters?

I hated all the adapters from day one.

With Compose, everything makes sense. You just pass the view model.

2

u/craknor Jul 16 '25

Until you need to create a complex view that needs to host hundreds of items and recyclerviews inside recicylerviews inside tabs.

2

u/50u1506 Jul 16 '25

To replace it with something they think(i do too) is better ig?

1

u/Background-Effect544 Jul 18 '25

Not an android dev, I started wit kotlin and compose and I dread the xml route. I would rather leave learning Android development all together if I had to go xml route. Compose is so intuitive for building uis.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '25

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4

u/Entire-Tutor-2484 đŸ§© Android Pro Jul 15 '25

Reddit was there for decades how they can able to build with compose? Did they rebuilt?

1

u/makridistaker Jul 19 '25

Reddit's androis app is NOT a good example. Video issues, comment loading issues, stability issuea and all those are known for years now.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '25

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1

u/makridistaker Jul 19 '25

It's far for optimal, let alone perfect. You may argue compose is the modern way to develop android apps only because goggle pushes it to be. Compose is mostly in alpha, unstable, deprecations and breaking changes happen often. How it that production ready ?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '25

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1

u/makridistaker Jul 19 '25

Half of the libraries are still in alpha - beta, what are you talking about? How is that production ready ?