android - Don't keep activities - What is it for?

Question

The title is pretty self-explanatory. I understand what this developer option does.

What I don't understand are the following points:

1. Why was that option introduced, in the first place?
2. After all the changes that the framework has seen throughout the years, is it still useful?

I am eager to know the reasons behind this option.

Answer 1

I believe it's a feature used for debugging purpose.

From the Titanium doc:

Don't keep activities under the Developer Options menu. When this option is enabled, the Android OS will destroy an activity as soon as it is stopped. It is intended to help developers debug their apps. For example, it can simulate the case that Android will kill an activity in the background due to memory pressure. In normal use, it is not recommended to turn this option on because this may lead to unexpected issues on the apps, such as freezes, force closes and reboots.

It sounds like it basically helps testing deterministically how your app behaves when the OS shuts it down due to any reason (out of memory and so on).

So, this replied to point 1. Point 2 is: Yes, I guess :)

EDIT: further references

• On SO How to know "Don't keep activities" is enabled in ICS?
• an interesting thread about that on androidcentral (reply from MagouyaWare)