I have been developing software for over a decade. I wanted to give Android apps a try too. But when I tried to install the tooling, it was all so heavy and bloated and clunky that I gave up and never tried again.

Compare that to writing web apps. You open an empty text file in a text editor and are ready to go.

I had a complete opposite experience a few weeks ago. It took me about an hour max to install Android Studio in Manjaro, install SDKs, spin up Android VM, pull open source Android keyboard app and add my own customised layout, then test it in VM and install to my phone. There were no errors at all. Just clicking buttons and waiting.

-edit: typo

What opensource keyboard app was it?