title: Is findViewById still needed
body: <p>Recently after getting back into Android development, as I was reviewing some code, I noticed that code would reference a control directly by its id without the need to use <code>findViewById</code>. So if I had a <code>textview</code> with an id of <code>tvUsername</code>, I could just call:</p>
  
  <pre><code>tvUsername.setText("john");
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In the past I was always using <code>findViewById</code> but am now wondering whether the ability to use a control directly without calling <code>findViewById</code> always existed, or did Google start supporting directly referencing it after some version.</p>