An important bit of TL;DR:<p>For those who, as did I, say "that's stupid! you have to install the Python for Android APK on the target device!", see <a href="http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/wiki/SharingScripts" rel="nofollow">http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/wiki/SharingScrip...</a>
I can totally relate to the statement: "If, like me, you'd rather eat glass than sit down to write some Java code in Eclipse, it would appear that you are out of luck when it comes to implementing your next project on Android." I've been attempting to educate myself about Android development for a side project. Dealing with Java has been an impediment, as my brain seems to grok scripting languages far more easily.
<a href="http://pygame.org" rel="nofollow">http://pygame.org</a> also has a pygame subset for android which includes a port of cpython. Not all modules are included though. Some python packages are missing, and some pygame modules are not included too. However it works well enough for most games.<p>Just create a directory called pygame on your sd card and put your code in there. No need to mess around with setting up java.
Does anyone know if it is possible to write JRuby android applications? It would seem a natural fit given Java etc etc. I do relate to the comment ""If, like me, you'd rather eat glass than sit down to write some Java code" so I have been looking for a better way to do it. Though, I have lately resigned myself to the fact that I may well have to write Java again...<p>As an aside...does anyone have experience with PhoneGap or Appcelerator? Wondering about experiences with those approaches (both positive and negative).
At the Texas Linux Fest, there was a great talk that reviewed non-Java ways of programming on Android:<p><a href="http://texaslinuxfest.org/sessions/decaffeinated-robot-developing-android-without-java" rel="nofollow">http://texaslinuxfest.org/sessions/decaffeinated-robot-devel...</a><p><a href="http://www.deepbluelambda.org/events/live/decaffeinated-robot-source-slides-and-audio" rel="nofollow">http://www.deepbluelambda.org/events/live/decaffeinated-robo...</a><p>There are some comparisons of code size for the different languages and environments. That was probably the most informative talk I attended at the Linux Fest.