android.tech Shutdown

Five years ago, I rolled out AndroidX Tech (androidx.tech). This site contained an index of all the androidx artifacts from maven.google.com, including copies of the source code for every version of every artifact.

I have shut it down.

I created it back when CommonsWare was still an operating business, rather than “a hobby with a logo”. I created it back when Google had very little to offer about the available artifacts and what they contained. And I created it back when all the AndroidX artifacts were written in Java and were targeting Android.

All those things have changed. Google still could do a better job of making the source code for a specific artifact version available — you have to download and unpack a JAR. But the code that I wrote to generate that site was failing more and more, not handling Kotlin source correctly and struggling with Kotlin Multiplatform libraries. If CommonsWare were still in business, perhaps I would invest in trying to address those problems, but there are other things that I would like to do with my time — you’ll see some of that shortly.

For those of you who used AndroidX Tech, I apologize for any problems this shutdown causes you.