And yes, I’m a newbie on this Google’s baby technology called Android. I’m gonna post my adventures with Android, so please do not expect (right-away) that my posts will be error-free, since adventures involve risks right?:) But I’m expecting some excitements, too. 🙂 Anyway, when I was assigned to develop an Android software here in my new job, these were the things that came in mind:
1. Define Java coding guidelines – since I’m REALLY new to Android, and Java, as well, I need to define these guidelines before I start coding like a maniac. 😀 Not only to Android software, but in software development, you need to establish these standards because in my experience (and I think it applies to other programmers as well), YOU DO NOT OWN YOUR CODE. Meaning, for sure, other programmers (colleagues or not) will try to read and understand your code, and maybe they’ll eventually incorporate theirs to yours. So if your code is not readable, doesn’t support any standards at all, then the other programmers will be doomed. I’ve been to that kind of situation before and it is difficult to add my work to the initial code, more importantly, debugging is a disaster! I have learned a valuable lesson from there so I’ve documented a set of Java coding guidelines for me and my “future” team mates. I have patterned some of them from Oracle’s Java Code Conventions, Geotechnical Software Services Java Programming Style Guidelines, and Apache’s. From this, I hope that this scenario will never happen in my current project: “One’s code is another programmer’s 24-hour debugging job.”
2. Decide what Architectural Design Pattern you should use for your system – I think this is a must in every software project. From what I’ve researched, MVC is the commonly used pattern for mobile applications. However, there are some sources that PAC is also suitable for this kind of system. For now, I’ll just stick with MVC since I’m more familiar with it. I’ll try to understand how to apply this to Android using Mindless Mind’s attempt. 🙂
3. Configure your development environment – Android’s official developer site already provides a step-by-step guideline on configuring your machine. You can develop Android apps by just using your own PC (MAC, Linux, or Windows OS) , how cool is that! 🙂 But of course, you need to have an actual Android handset (if you’re developing a mobile app) for testing purposes. 🙂
4. Study Java and Eclipse basics – Since I’m a newbie in Java and one if its IDE Eclipse, I asked my ex-officemate and good friend Anne if she could suggest any tutorials on Java basics, and then she enlightened me with Eclipse and Java for Total Beginners. This tutorial really helped me to learn Java and Eclipse in a flash. 🙂
5. Study Android basics – There are a lot of sources out there, promise. 🙂 Aside from the official Android developer site, here are some of the books and video tutorials that I’m looking at:
BOOKS
- The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development by Mark L. Murphy
- Beginning Android 2 by Mark L. Murphy
- Professional Android 2 Application Development by Reto Meier
VIDEO TUTORIALS
- Learn how to develop for Android, Beyond HelloWorld
- Learn about Android Internals and NDK
- Learn how to target all Android devices from Google’s own Justin Mattson
So there! Those were the things I did when I was first assigned to create an Android app. 🙂 Hope this post will help other newbies like me. 🙂
The Geeky Me 