CODEWITHSUNDEEP
android
Joe
Joe

Reputation: 4625

How do I manage versions of Android Studio across the team?

I'm a bit worried that the answer is "don't use beta software to develop production applications," but I figure I'll give it a shot anyway.

Currently our team is sharing and android project, using Android Studio to develop it. When "Developer A" updates his locally installed version of AS, there's a chance that it will also require an update to the gradle plugin and build tools. He pushes the changes.

"Developer B" pulls changes, and he's no longer able to build through AS since his installed version is too old. He has to upgrade to the latest AS in order to develop new features.

Now it's time to release a new version, and our build server has the wrong version of the build tools in its local installation of the SDK.

This isn't an ideal solution. I think the right way to solve this is to wait until AS 1.0 is released and only subscribe to the "releases" channel for updates.

How have you solved this issue?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 619

Answers (1)

crocboy
crocboy

Reputation: 2897

The answer is to use one standard version of the development tools across your team.

The approach I've seen used many times on other platforms is to keep your source in a version control system and make sure everyone is using the same version of build tools, in this case Android Studio. There's no reason for developers to be using different versions of build tools unless they are working on different versions of the code. When you want to move to a newer version, you can create a tag, or a copy of your code from your repo that is guaranteed to work with version X of Android Studio. Then everyone can migrate together to a new version.

Long story short, it's not a good idea (in my opinion) to have multiple developers on the same project using different versions of development tools. It leads to inconsistency and is more work than it's worth. When you want to upgrade to the new version, do it as a team and not as individuals.

I also think that using Android Studio for a production app isn't necessarily a bad thing, the build tools it uses are fairly mature, but the IDE itself could use some improvements.

Upvotes: 1

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