将最小、目标和编译 SDK 设置为相同版本是否更好？

Question

I'm learning Android and coming from the dark side of iOS, where everything is stricter handled.

I have read about the differences between min sdk , target sdk and compile sdk . However the following scenario is still not clear to me.

If my min sdk is set to KitKat (19) to allow 98% user base coverage, and my target sdk is set to Android 10+ (30) , then I could be compiling with features that are not available on KitKat.

For example Material design is supposed to be supported from Lolipop (21) . But how comes I still can add it to my KitKat build.gradle project?

dependencies {
    implementation "com.google.android.material:material:$material_version"
}

So when a user with KitKat Android opens my app, it should crash because of Material Design, right? So why is the compiler not complaining about this and let it pass?

Is better to have all three pointing to the minimum version that I want to support?

Answer 1

So when a user with KitKat Android opens my app, it should crash because of Material Design, right? So why is the compiler not complaining about this and let it pass?

Because the library is backward compatible and so it will not crash. The compiler will complain otherwise.

Is better to have all three pointing to the minimum version that I want to support?

Depends on your requirement, but in my opinion it is better to have a min sdk to target maximum users.