Blazing Fast Android Development: Hot-Swapping Modules with Buck
summary
Open-source build system Buck adds a debug-only hot reload that pushes only changed secondary dex files via exopackage, replaces a throwaway classloader delegate to avoid native caches, and enforces modular packaging so static state stays consistent. End-to-end edits drop from ~42s full rebuild to ~20s with exopackage and down to ~5s with hot swapping (author reports ~88% reduction), enabled by dynamic lookups, activity/fragment refresh callbacks, and application_module_configs; an alpha lands on GitHub.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction and motivation
- 2:04Current Android development workflow
- 5:33Incremental compilation in Buck
- 8:40Incremental installation with exopackage
- 13:00Introducing hot swapping
- 14:46How hot swapping works
- 18:19Enabling hot swap in Buck
- 23:36Correctness challenges in hot swap
- 30:17Results and future plans
- 31:40Q&A session
related talks
52mmulti-module Android application
55mCompilers. Dalvik. ART. And everything in between
32mBuild a modular Android app architecture
34mIntro to App Modularization
27mClojure and Android
28mBest practices using compilers in Android Studio
35mArchitecture for App Bundles
40mModularizing Android Applications