Saturday 2 November 2013

News by:  Jared Peters  31st October 2013

New ART compiler in addition to dalvik

As we all know Android has always used the Dalvik virtual machine as it’s runtime compiler, and for the most part, it works well. However, in what’s probably a piece of Android’s new Project Svelte, they’ve introduced a new compiler called ART which adds Performance boost in Kitkat.. This is likely related to Google’s big purchase of Flexycore not long ago, as these compilers relate directly to Android performance.
ART is showing up in some Android developer menus, but it isn’t completely implemented just yet. ART reads .oat files as opposed to the traditional .odex files that have been common in Android system applications up to this point. Android also includes an odex2oat converter, so whenever this does get implemented, it seems like Android should be able to handle the change as well as backwards compatibility with older data and apps.
This is some pretty technical low-level hardware stuff that most users never even notice, but if you’re interested, you can find out more at XDA.

news source: talkandroid.com