Rahul Ravikumar

Want to actually understand what your app is doing at runtime?

In the next episode we explore:
⚡ Android Profiler
🔎 Perfetto
🧵 Tracing 2.0
📱 Performance in Compose

With Rahul Ravikumar.

Join us live → cwti.link/twitch

#AndroidDev #Performance #JetpackCompose

What about magic move though?

In general, anything downloaded from the Snap store does not seem to use Wayland. 😭

While you are doing that, also ensure that the version of Visual Studio Code installed, is not a snap. That version hard codes the display server to X11 as well!

Use the official distribution from Microsoft, and again your eyes will thank you.

Wayland Support Preview In 2024.2 | The JetBrains Platform Blog We are delighted to announce that, starting with the 2024.2 Early Access Program (EAP), IntelliJ-based IDEs will offer preliminary support for the Wayland display server protocol on Linux, including W

PSA: Switch the display server for IntelliJ from X11 to Wayland. Your eyes will thank you. What an incredible difference!

It's glorious now !

blog.jetbrains.com/platform/202...

What’s new:
✅ Multi-platform: Android + JVM targets!
✅ Automatic Coroutine context propagation.
✅ Pluggable backends and Sinks.

The new major version of androidx.tracing is now available on Google Maven. We’ve spent the last year optimizing it, so it's extremely low overhead.

The documentation is available at: developer.android.com/topic/perfor...

Happy Tracing!

A huge thank you to all the colleagues I’ve had the privilege of working with over the last 10 years. I’m incredibly grateful for everything you’ve taught me. Who I am, is a direct result of the brilliant people I was lucky enough to call teammates. 🙏

Two blog posts back to back! ✍️

I just published a summary of my decade-long journey at Google. It covers the projects and the growth, but more importantly, a reflection on some of the things I’ve learned along the way.

You can read the full post here: rahulrav.com/blog/10_year...

I broke down how R8 strips away Intrinsics overhead and leverages ART intrinsics to make your apps faster—without you changing a single line of code (starting with AGP 9.0).

rahulrav.com/blog/kotlin_...

Gemini please rewrite this Python to Kotlin 🙂. Let our AI overlords do the work.

Let me write one !

2 Months from now you will be closer to AGP 10 😅

Same. Berkeley Mono is 😍

Add the ability for the JVM Backend to emit a simplified error messag… by tikurahul · Pull Request #5552 · JetBrains/kotlin Add the ability for the JVM Backend to emit a simplified error message when performing a downcast. This is especially important on Android, given we can significantly reduce the number of strings i...

I also tried to upstream the change into the Kotlin Compiler itself but it ended up being easier to do this.

github.com/JetBrains/ko...

There is a pretty visible shift in frame durations after this change. Here is an example with one of the Compose Hero benchmarks.

The actual change in R8 that describes this in more detail is: r8-review.git.corp.google.com/c/r8/+/112940

Code that used to look like:

invoke-static {p1, v0}, Lkotlin/jvm/internal/Intrinsics;->checkNotNullParameter(Ljava/lang/Object;Ljava/lang/String;)V

turns into a simpler:

invoke-virtual {p1}, Ljava/lang/Object;->getClass()Ljava/lang/Class;

If p1 was null, calling getClass() on it throws the NPE

Compiler Explorer - Android Kotlin (r8 latest) // Type your code here, or load an example. // // dex2oat profile-guided compilation: // Add "profile.prof.txt" to "Included files" and click the refresh button at // the bottom of the compiler output...

Here is an example: godbolt.org/z/Eeve5q1dz

Effectively what ends up happening is that you are using a new proguard directive: `-processkotlinnullchecks`.

PSA: Starting Android Gradle Plugin 9.0 (or the latest stable version of R8): R8 will automatically optimize all Intrinsics.check* APIs in Kotlin automatically !

This should greatly help improve app performance (especially Compose given the large Kotlin library API surface).

Thank you for putting the podcast together. I've been an avid listener even before I joined Google and found it really inspiring to hear about all the amazing stuff you folks shipped !

Ooh a tiling Window Manager. Before I go all in, I should dip my toes with using one on Ubuntu and make sure I am able to work with it.

I might have a knack for picking good languages to learn. Python (for free App Engine quotas), TypeScript to end the loosely typed tyranny and Kotlin pre 1.0. I have a good feeling about Zig. The obsession about performance and safety makes it a great choice. The other interesting language is Mojo.

That would certainly make for an extremely interesting timeline 🙂

I have a feeling that with the current RAM crisis for the foreseeable future we will see a big change in our general attitude about performance and memory. At least I hope we really do.

Given the state of Windows 11 + Copilot 🤮; 2026 might actually be the year of Linux on the Desktop. Framework 16+ Ubuntu has been a breath of fresh air.

UniFi Travel Router - Ubiquiti Store An ultra-slim travel router that instantly extends your UniFi Network wherever you are, bringing secure, familiar connectivity to remote locations.

Happy UniFi Travel Router day to those who celebrate it 🎉
store.ui.com/us/en/catego...

Yes, there should be one. Hopefully it becomes available soon.

Excited to see all the enthusiasm for Performance related content, given how relevant it is for India. Met so many developers and exchanged ideas on what we can do better.

Thanks for being an amazing community and happy tracing !!

I presented an updated version of "A Busy (Android) Developers guide to Perfetto" at Droidcon India this past week. The session was packed and was standing room only !

There were so many other wonderful Performance talks !