[HN Gopher] Rustroid, a Rust IDE for Android
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Rustroid, a Rust IDE for Android
        
       Author : coolcoder613
       Score  : 62 points
       Date   : 2025-09-25 00:28 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (rustroid.is-a.dev)
 (TXT) w3m dump (rustroid.is-a.dev)
        
       | hobs wrote:
       | Damn, I don't have much to say but good work kid. That's an
       | insane amount of work on your own tooling, some of the most
       | satisfying stuff I generally work on.
        
       | iberator wrote:
       | Amazing. I'm also a sole mobile code with an external bluetooth
       | keyboard. Termux, tmux and vim.
       | 
       | But I'm homeless It's painful...
        
       | johnisgood wrote:
       | Do people seriously code on their phone without any keyboards?
       | Are IDEs in demand for phones?
       | 
       | (It is not intended to be an insult of any sort. It is a serious
       | question. I do not know anyone who does this and I cannot imagine
       | myself being productive at all. I want to compare WPMs on a
       | keyboard vs. on a phone as well.)
        
         | pjmlp wrote:
         | On good modern tablets you can nicely use the pen, and is
         | almost as I used to do offline programming on paper netbooks,
         | with the difference, now I can actually execute them, instead
         | of coming home and type everything into the PC.
        
           | johnisgood wrote:
           | Interesting. I cannot imagine myself being any productive. I
           | typically just write down my thoughts and ideas on my phone
           | when I am not nearby my PC.
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | I usually have fun on the go between C# Shell, Pydroid 3
             | and ShaderBox.
        
         | GZGavinZhao wrote:
         | I could be wrong, but I recall in many developing countries
         | phones there are many teenagers who code on their phone because
         | laptops (even tablets) are prohibitively costly.
         | 
         | They might be wiring their phones up to some cheap keyboards,
         | which is technically possible but I don't know if they're doing
         | that.
         | 
         | A friend of mine from a SEA country learned/did all of his
         | coding on a 10-inch Android tablet using the touch-screen
         | keyboard since age 11 until his parents bought him a proper
         | laptop as a gift for going to college.
         | 
         | Edit: for example
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45286044, there are other
         | cases that I've definitely seen on GitHub but I can't find them
         | at this moment.
        
           | johnisgood wrote:
           | Hmm, I see. Of course if I had no choice like those people, I
           | would rather pick "coding uncomfortably on a phone" over "not
           | coding at all".
        
           | jlg23 wrote:
           | > I could be wrong, but I recall in many developing countries
           | phones there are many teenagers who code on their phone
           | because laptops (even tablets) are prohibitively costly.
           | 
           | Yes, I see that a lot here in the far south of Morocco.
           | 
           | > They might be wiring their phones up to some cheap
           | keyboards, which is technically possible but I don't know if
           | they're doing that.
           | 
           | They do. Adapters are about $2.
        
             | giancarlostoro wrote:
             | Why do that when bluetooth keyboards are cheap these days
             | too? For like $11 you can get a bluetooth keyboard, which
             | would most likely just work...
             | 
             | I could also see some of them using a cheap tablet for the
             | larger screen, but I've also run into teens who use their
             | phones exclusively.
        
               | VoidWhisperer wrote:
               | It may be $11 here in the US, but it might be harder to
               | get and more costly in a developing nation. In which
               | case, if it is easier to get that $2 adapter and an
               | e-waste keyboard, that likely makes sense for them
        
           | nicoburns wrote:
           | > They might be wiring their phones up to some cheap
           | keyboards, which is technically possible
           | 
           | Not just possible, but quite easy. You just plug it in (or
           | connect it via bluetooth) same as with a computer.
        
         | sdeframond wrote:
         | I sometimes plug my phone to a screen with a keyboard. It is
         | not as good as a "real" computer but most everyday thing can be
         | done (sending mails, browsing the web, editing spreadsheets).
         | 
         | I never tried programming on it but I can imagine a world where
         | the only computer i own fits in my pocket.
        
           | johnisgood wrote:
           | I would go with a phone that has a keyboard, or with a
           | powerful phone and just use a Bluetooth keyboard. Might be
           | some mini keyboard (my fingers are small).
        
         | giancarlostoro wrote:
         | I have a friend who works a normal 9 to 5 and codes from his
         | phone at his full time job when there's down time.
         | 
         | I've also met in programming discords various younger
         | developers who write code from the only computing device they
         | have access to: their phones.
        
         | QQ00 wrote:
         | you would be surprised, but many people do programming on their
         | phones. I can't imagine the pain to do that though, PC is way
         | more flexible to do programming on.
        
         | charcircuit wrote:
         | >I want to compare WPMs on a keyboard vs. on a phone as well
         | 
         | WPM is not the bottleneck in coding, especially now in the age
         | where AI agents now do the coding for you.
        
       | stefanka wrote:
       | Will it run on the Quest headset? It'd be nice to develop rust
       | extensions for Godot in a real IDE. Price seems fair to me too.
       | Will there be a means to test the software first?
        
       | NooneAtAll3 wrote:
       | is it offline?
       | 
       | I remember for a while the only rust-writing app on play market
       | simply called home to compile your stuff there
        
       | fitblipper wrote:
       | This could fit in well with the Pixel's upcoming desktop mode or
       | Samsung DeX. Hopefully Google keeps developing desktop mode to
       | make it more usable.
        
       | nh43215rgb wrote:
       | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mohammedkh...
        
       | tommica wrote:
       | The backstory is fricking amazing! It really shows how much pure
       | will just allows a person to do stuff.
        
       | AbuAssar wrote:
       | Impressive work for a 17 years old guy, well done!
        
       | skeptrune wrote:
       | There is an untapped market for phone-oriented IDEs. It's a super
       | convenient way to code when you're out of the office or on the
       | go.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2025-09-28 23:00 UTC)