Is “AndroidAnnotaions” reliable?

Question

Is "AndroidAnnotations" reliable? I've searched it but couldn't find many articles on it(reviews or tutorials).

I've been considering using this library in my project which already has quite lots of users. Before adopting it, I need a good reputation on it. So my concerns mainly are,

• Are there famous products using this library?
• Can I say it's stable enough to adopt it for my big project?
• Will it be maintained well? (bug fixes, etc)

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I am the lead developer of AndroidAnnotations. Let's answer your questions:

Can you rely on AndroidAnnotations?

I think so. AndroidAnnotations is a compile time framework which generates code. The generated code is readable java code, which means that if you need to understand what happens, you can. No magic happening at runtime => you are in control.

We try to maintain a list of external articles / tutorials here.

Are there famous products using this library?

Let's be honest: I don't know. Matthias Kaeppler from Qype talked about AndroidAnnotations at DroidCon London 2011. The frontpage lists the applications that we know for sure are using it. I know there are way more people using it because they ask for enhancements and report bugs, but they usually don't let us know when they publish an app. And of course, the idea of "writing clean and maintainable Android code" is not yet very common in the Android community.

Can I say it's stable enough to adopt it for my big project?

We are using it in our own apps, and we find it perfectly stable. So I would answer yes, but I think you should just try it :-) . Download the 2.2 RC2 (will be released stable soon), follow the instructions and see for yourself. You can do progressive enhancement, and start enhancing only one or two activities. See how it fits you, and let us know if anything goes wrong. And if you do release an app with AndroidAnnotations on the Android market, please let us know, we'll update the front page.

Will AndroidAnnotations be maintained?

Yes, it will. Although it started as a personal project, AndroidAnnotations is now sponsored by a company, eBusiness Information. This company employs people (including me) to work on AndroidAnnotations, with the aim of making it a major Open Source Android framework.

As you can see here and there, we are adding a lot of new features for the 2.2 release. And you won't find a lot of open Defects in the issues, because we concentrate on fixing any bug before adding new features.