Asynctask vs Thread vs Services vs Loader
I got slightly confused about the differences between Asynctask, Thread, Service, Loader in Android.
I know how it works. But i still don't understand what and when should i use.
I work with Android for 3 years, and generally still use AsyncTask for all background tasks (and sometimes Thread). But many people say that "Asynctask is outdated", and don't recommend to use them. Also they recommend to use robospice or Volley.
So, is AsyncTask really so bad and i should use framework for networking tasks? And what should i use for background (not networking) task?
Answer
Threads: Same as Java threads, use it to do heavy operations but you have to manage it on your own and it can also cause synchronization problems and you can't update UI from it until you are running it on the UI thread.
AsyncTask: A great threading library available in Android for doing background task. It is managed by the android OS itself, you can update the UI from it. It runs in parallel or serially depending upon the version of android. It can be messy sometimes to use it as in the cases of orientation changes and now for making network calls you can use volley which is better than AsyncTask. AsyncTasks do not bother about their parent activity is running or not and it can be quite tedious to sometimes cancel that. So, I would suggest you if you are using AsyncTask to make rest API calls better use RETROFIT or VOLLEY and if you choose RETROFIT between the two I would recommend you to have a look at PICASSO another awesome library from square for image loading.
Service: For doing long-term background tasks you should use services. You can bound the services to your activity if you need. You can define that they run in the same thread or a different thread and you need to declare it in manifest or you can use IntentService - a variant of service which runs in its own thread but be careful before using it, don't use it for long running tasks. It's a single time operator. If you are going to use service evaluate the case that which one suits your requirement better a normal Service or IntentService
Loaders: this is same as AsyncTask in many ways, it is advised to use loaders with the fragments and it solves the orientation problem of the asynctasks.
If you have already moved to kotlin I would suggest you to have a look at Coroutines.These are very lightweight and quite effective for threading and provide you a lot of control over the lifecycle. I hope this helped.