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Android Software Development

Hi all,
I work in IT but have never done any programming at all before. I would like to get started in developing apps for Android. Does anyone have any pointers tips on doing this. Is Android the wrong place to start with programming or should I be ok? Does anyone know of any good resources which should get me started, either online or in book form?
Any advice appreciated,
Michael

Manning has a Developing for Android book. http://www.manning.com/ableson/ You'll need to learn Java so start there too. Or look into Titanium http://www.appcelerator.com/

Promoting your site, isn't a good idea

I don't necessarily want to discourage you, but doing proper software development isn't the easiest thing to learn. There's a pretty steep learning curve surrounding object-oriented development, and the alternative is something you'll either hate or misuse.
Most people starting to program first learn how to make things happen in code procedurally: do A, then when that's done do B, then when that's done do C. Trying to program user interfaces this way is awful because the user workflow does not necessarily follow each little action in a specific order (and the interface has to continue to be responsive while your program is working). Your code will almost certainly suck and you'll spend most of your time testing, fixing bugs, and rejecting feature requests because they are "impossible" until you learn the better way: break down the problem into discrete blocks of related data and resources (the objects), define all the ways each block can be manipulated (the methods on those objects), define the conditions under which different actions must take place (thread messaging, event handlers), and tie all of that together into an application.
If this sort of thing interests you, great! I myself used to work in IT and found software development to be a much more interesting, open, and creative field. Mobile development is an especially fun field because you can deal with smaller projects and your customers are normal people, not businesses. I caution you not to jump right into the deep end, though; read several books on java and OOP, start with a smaller project and redesign/rewrite it several times until it's perfect, then you'll be ready to take what you've learned and apply it to something incrementally bigger.

Financial Application Development

I have barely developed anything since the BASIC days on the C64 and Amiga, and now feel inspired to create some financial applications for the Australian market - such as superannuation projections.
How hard is it to develop? A few standard calculations like you would see on a spreadsheet would work, with some graphing.
Most financial applications I have found are pretty basic and don't account for inflation in rising wages and fees, etc.
I believe I could attract at least a dollar for a well developed application for superannuation alone.

I have installed the Android 2.2 SDK and have no idea where to start. I presume this is some sort of emulated Android device I can test my applications on.
Are there any tutorials on how to get started? What's the development language?
All I need to do is create a simple text interface to input a few parameters to run some complex financial calculations on the back end.
A really sophisticated application would pull live interest rates or other data and enter that in.

Start with this:
developer.android. com/resources/tutorials/ hello-world.html
(take away the spaces, I cant post links yet )
These are all great tutorials that will walk you through the basic processes and applications/layouts. The only issue you will have is when/if you decide to go through the "Tabs View" tutorial, there are a lot of errors in the code, and I have no idea why no one have changed it, but you can PM me for the correct version.
If you want some basics on Java, just do a google search, there are a lot of great tutorials out there for beginning Java. I recommend doing this first, just so you have a good understanding of Java(which is the development language), it will *REALLY* help out. You can incorporate other languages, but for the time being, stick with Java.

Yes, the SDK comes with an emulator so that you can test your programs without having to install them on a real device. In addition to what Jimmy said (and I can't stres highly enough that you should start with the Android Developer's website and tutorials), you can go to Stack Overflow which is a programming Q&A website. People there are generally very helpful, as long as you've shown you've actually put some effort into solving your problem before you posted your question.

Fair enough... So it's basically about learning to programme for Java? How hard would it be, realistically, for someone with no application development experience?

You need a basic grasp of objected oriented design & programming, along with an understanding of the Java language. When it comes to gui aspects & all communication with other apps/data on the device, you have Android, rather than the usual Java class libraries such as awt or swing.
How hard? It's doable, imo, but will depend on aptitude. Start with Java & then add in Android when you feel like more material to get your head around.

So basically getting started requires me to learn application development like on any other platform, in OO and Java. I may as well do a course or something then. Would a few weeks doing some sort of intro course help?

I'm sure an appropriate course could be very helpful. Though I'd steer clear of those short courses claiming to turn anyone into a valuable skilled programmer in only xx weeks, if only because the tutor will probably know less than you on the subject. Better one which makes credible claims regarding its introductory nature. A couple of degree level intro modules on OO or Java should be of help.

[Q] The best tutorial for game/app development on android ?

I want to develop games for android, but the problem is that I'm totally clueless about how to do it, so if anyone would give me the name of books, site, anything that would point a beginner like me to how to start developing for android, I would be very grateful !!!
thanks in advance

Professional Android 2 Application Development by Reto Meier is a decent book for learning general application programming. It goes over the basics and includes chapters on how to read data from the various sensors, accelerometer, access the camera and whatnot.. Pretty handy if you want to make a robust game.
It doesn't go over OpenGL, so you'll have to find a separate book for that. I'm pretty sure there are some tutorials on http://developer.android.com, but I've never been interested enough to read through it.
Hope that helps, good luck.

thnx a lot, I'll be sure to go over that book, read reviews to see if it's good before diving in

Where to start in Android application development?

Hello everybody, long time lurker, first time poster. I'm posting to ask about where to get started in developing Android applications? I have half a degree in computer science, am familiar with coding, and work in Android software QA, but I'm trying to get my skillset up to the next level and actually start developing applications on Android. Is there any specific books or literature I should read to get me started on my journey? I'm also a long time IT guy on both Windows and Unix-based systems, so I'm by no means computer illiterate. I'm also a long time phone modder as I've been tweaking Android phones since the original G1 running 1.0. Thanks in advance!

Take a look at the Android Developer guide. It has samples and tutorials. If you google, there are also several free PDFs on the subject.
A good Java book will also help a lot. Just start to write a few trial apps and you will get there quickly!

The best place to learn for me, is android web page:
Here you have everything to start:
http://developer.android.com/guide/index.html
And to set up the environment for developing:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
If you want to learn from the scratch, the links I posted are your point. You can also take a look to the tutorials:
http://developer.android.com/intl/es...llo-world.html
You can also start with java, if you want.. I reccomend you take a look to this:
http://download.oracle.com/javase/tu...ava/index.html
http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/
and start from Java SE 6 (http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/)
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/ja...sp-135888.html

I don't know what your college classes are like for CS, but you should have the basics of programming, why not start writing some Android apps?
Start with the basic "Hello World". Get used to working with main.xml and TextViews, EditViews, ListViews, Buttons and Listeners. Android is mostly JAVA, some Android-specific operations and your xml files.
Take some of your CS 101 type programs and try to write them on Android. The more programs you write, the more you learn.
Try to learn something new everyday and in no time at all you'll be impressed with how far you have come.

Rootstonian said:
I don't know what your college classes are like for CS, but you should have the basics of programming, why not start writing some Android apps?
Start with the basic "Hello World". Get used to working with main.xml and TextViews, EditViews, ListViews, Buttons and Listeners. Android is mostly JAVA, some Android-specific operations and your xml files.
Take some of your CS 101 type programs and try to write them on Android. The more programs you write, the more you learn.
Try to learn something new everyday and in no time at all you'll be impressed with how far you have come.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes this is really a good advice
Just start writting little programs and you will go up soon
You could use the sample code that comes with the sdk, and start with different things: First, layout, xml and the like. You could then start with some othe things, like services, broadcast receivers, content providers, to get the feel of them. And finally, work with the hardware: Internet (wifi or 3g), bluetooth..

Hey guys, Sorry to get off Track but I've been trying to Complete my ROM for Everyone that's Currently using it. Anyways... Reading All the Posts in this Thread it seems to me that there Definitely are some Well-Seasoned Veteran Developers here, so Forgive Me but I have to ask, Is there Anyone that can maybe Help assist me with getting FlashLite Working on my Rom.... Please?
The link to my Rom Thread is in my Signature... and my phone is a (CDMA) Sprint Hero!
Thanx in Advance!!
*Sent on My*
Fast as its Ever Been....
"Sprint" Hero.... Running My, *ExEnHeroC* Rom, w/Kifno's Twist, Also The XDA-BLUE.apk!! "Page 10" of My Thread!!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=957867
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WTMLMK6M
http://www.mediafire.com/?bb1axugm0bw7oro
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=/&gl=US#/profile?user=PMGRANDS

At Barnes and Noble there is a book called Android App Development in 24 Hours. It is a freaking great book. Helped me a lot when I started. It breaks down the chapters in to hours with exercises and explanations. Being familiar with Java fundamentals would be good, but not necessary. The first couple hours(chapters) explains the a general overview of the history of the OS and helps you build your first app. My favorite part of the book is how it teaches you to build and app piece by piece over the rest of the chapters adding new features each hour. So, by the end you have and app with quite a bit of features that work and you actually understand how and why. At the end, you have an app that has a lot of Android features as well as knowledge of how they work and can be used. It doesn't go into the more advanced features, but it is well worth the money for beginners. I still use it as a reference because of the easy to understand instructions. Sometimes, the Internet guides assume you have been using Java for 10 years and skip how and why they are doing something. And even then I doubt every veteran Java programmer remembers everything. I am half asleep so forgive any grammar errors.
Ken
Sent from my iPhone with the bigger Gee Bees.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVZ1P35xgNQ
Really good tutorial for the first basic steps. In terms of installing eclipse/java and hello world. He continues with his tutorial in part 2, part 3 and so on.

Android/fruItphone app. idea needs help...
If there is anyone who has knowledge on building apps for Android, I would be extremely interested to share with them an idea for an app. I'd hope this app would be able to work on that other fruIt based dumbphone, too.

Well, there is planty of developers out here I'm one of them (thought not the smartest ) so, if you want to share the knowledge, feel free to PM me

[Q] Question regarding watch face creation (dynamic watch face background)

Hey, <insert request that you ignore the fact that I have no clue what I'm doing/am a noob here> I was wondering if it's possible to create a watch face background that changes based on the card being previewed, similarly to the "simple" watch face that came as a watch face for the moto 360. If it is possible, are there any guides, resources, etc. that you guys could point me towards, or if someone has recreated that face or a similar one and the code is available that would be fantastic.
Thank you all very much!
Note: while I really appreciate any and all help, I'm relatively inexperienced with programming, and entirely new to programming for android, so explanations will likely confuse me; developer resources or tutorials, or even better, sample code, would probably be a lot more helpful, so I can jump in and start changing things, or dig through the syntax and stuff as some sort of context for the code I'm looking at (I'm more experienced with graphic design and have just started to get into programming outside of basic stuff with C#, VB.net, and python).

BioToxic737 said:
Hey, <insert request that you ignore the fact that I have no clue what I'm doing/am a noob here> I was wondering if it's possible to create a watch face background that changes based on the card being previewed, similarly to the "simple" watch face that came as a watch face for the moto 360. If it is possible, are there any guides, resources, etc. that you guys could point me towards, or if someone has recreated that face or a similar one and the code is available that would be fantastic.
Thank you all very much!
Note: while I really appreciate any and all help, I'm relatively inexperienced with programming, and entirely new to programming for android, so explanations will likely confuse me; developer resources or tutorials, or even better, sample code, would probably be a lot more helpful, so I can jump in and start changing things, or dig through the syntax and stuff as some sort of context for the code I'm looking at (I'm more experienced with graphic design and have just started to get into programming outside of basic stuff with C#, VB.net, and python).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey BioToxic! Nice to meet you.
I am porting a friends Watch Face to Android. I can tell you that it is entirely possible, you can pretty much modify and manipulate the background to anything of like. I've been working in the Watch Face environment for a few weeks now and have a good solid understanding of how it works (previous knowledge helped, of course)
There is a lot of Java coding involved, if you are not familiar with that or familiar with how Android works it might be tough, you'll be writing code and not understand how it works.
A good starting point would be looking at the classes available in the WatchFace API.
[developer.android.com/reference/android/support/wearable/watchface/package-summary.html
Another good starting point would be getting your feet wet with the emulator, or better yet an actual device. Play around with the sample modules available.