Rethinking LiveData in Android Development

LiveData used to be the go-to solution for observing data in Android apps. It brought lifecycle-awareness and simplified data binding between ViewModel and UI. However, with the evolution of Kotlin and coroutines, Flow has emerged as the more powerful and flexible alternative.

Android Development

1. 🧬 Lifecycle Dependency

LiveData is lifecycle-aware, but this means it’s tightly coupled with Android’s LifecycleOwner. This limits its use to UI layers only.

// LiveData in ViewModel
val currentEra: LiveData<String> = liveData {
    emit(taylorRepository.getCurrentEra()) // "1989", "Reputation", etc.
}

Whereas Flow is lifecycle-agnostic, making it more suitable for clean architecture:

// Flow in ViewModel
val currentEra: Flow<String> = flow {
    emit(taylorRepository.getCurrentEra())
}

You can convert Flow to LiveData in the UI if needed:

val eraLiveData: LiveData<String> = currentEra.asLiveData()

2. 🔁 Cold vs. Hot Streams

• LiveData is hot: once active, it keeps emitting data.
• Flow is cold: it only runs when collected.

// LiveData: triggers right away
currentEra.observe(viewLifecycleOwner) {
    // "Red"…