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How to Devolop in Android

I downloaded the SDK and hooked it up to Eclipse. I am also somewhat waiting for Googles App maker. I am learning to program slowly but I don't get where to start with Android because I cannot find any...good tutorials. I am "majoring" at programming (I put that in quotes because I am really an IT, but I am stuck at this college for now), but I am not that great.
I ask this because I want to make an app that will help me TREMENDOUSLY and I would also release it publicly. I don't really want to reveal the idea for the app unless I have to. It is a really basic app that will allow the user to store data and the app will make a graph out of it.
Where can I get some helpful tutorials with android developing? Is there a book or...should I just wait for Googles App Maker.

Um, do you know java? I'd say you need basic understanding of that. Then just go to a library and get an android dev book or find one online. You could always try google's own tutorials on their site by searching google for "developer's guide." (Can't post links so it should be top result)
Hope that helps...

Thanks, I guess I'll have to kiss up to my old Java teacher for help. And...also I'll have to find that book I borrowed from the library three years ago

they have 3-4 very basic guides: http://hackaday.com/category/android-hacks/

How did you learn to code?

Yes I am asking you!
Your personal experience on how you learned coding!
Feel free to vent, my eyes are wide open
my reason? Why I have a book on coding (for Andriod) and the coding package (Eclipse, Andriod SDK, and SO ON)
but is this enough?
How did you start? What was your motivation?
is it fun!?
Please if anyone replies to it, i'd be very happy

Many moons ago, there was a magazine called BBC Micro User, and in it there were pages and pages of code for games written in BASIC.
Normally the code was wrong in places, which meant you had to debug and therefore learn how it worked rather than just copying it verbatum.
This is of course related to our phones as the BBC B was an ancestor to them (now there's a thought!)

Problems? No problems! You need a small program to make your life easier? Go and read in all forums! Ask questions! Start programing by leaning by doing.

Mizulunaris said:
Yes I am asking you!
Your personal experience on how you learned coding!
Feel free to vent, my eyes are wide open
my reason? Why I have a book on coding (for Andriod) and the coding package (Eclipse, Andriod SDK, and SO ON)
but is this enough?
How did you start? What was your motivation?
is it fun!?
Please if anyone replies to it, i'd be very happy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why did you buy a book to find out about technology?!? That book will be outdated tomorrow...I suggest looking up info on the internet and there's this cool thing that's called google that lets you ask any question you want...check it out.
Hope this helped Mizu Luna!

Thank you all for relpying !
think the book is already out dated XD
It was made when android 2.2 just came out....I figured any info toget me startd would be nice.....
I still haven't gotten into the gist of the forum though.....I still don't know many of the terms and aren't familiar to a lot of things talked about...or where things are placed.....and no formal training to help me.....
I guess I'll read on a bit until I can properly place my feet

I couldn't even tell you how I started, I was like 8 years old and just playing around for the hell of it. Been switching around and trying languages ever since. As for motivation, the only reason I ever write a program is because I need something done... I'll feel like I wish my PC/phone/website did something differently - so I make it do that
Really, the best thing to do is just dive right into it. If you want to start with Android, find a good tutorial that at least has you get an IDE and build environment set up... Then from there just start experimenting with some example code, or apps others have written as you go through more tutorials.
If you want to properly learn how to code though, most would suggest starting with something on a PC rather than diving right into Android dev. Starting with an easy-to-use scripting language or interpreter (like Python) is a good way to start playing around - and then you can move on to other languages such as Java with a solid understanding of how programming languages work.
It's all personal preference though, just find a solid tutorial and stick with it. Try to experiment as you go along, try things with the code, and actually understand what it's telling you.

I started with webpage design and slowly moved into other venues. I became interested in making apps for ideas that I had and started to search google on how to code specific tasks that I wanted in my apps and then mixing it all together and making small changes in the code and watching to see what it did.

[Q] Becoming a dev.

NEWBIE...Im fairly new into the developing world, but I have a solid background in anything computer orrientated. I started with a droid x, rooted it, and have never looked back. I'm taking java classes and learning as much as I can about programming. Any helpfull advice for someone starting a career/lifelong hobby in this feild? Reading a lot of books and blogs, but any other resources would be greatly appreciated.
Thx to all the professional devs out there who make it a fun digital world to cusomize!!!!

http://goo.gl/xB9rK
Lets start by using the search function.
This question gets asked and answered several times per week...
Personally i would skip the books.
I started by an idea in my mind what i wanted my app to do and taught myself through tutorials, stackoverflow, irc and lots of google...
Start something small, maybe an app that plays a single mp3 file.
Now you think, how can i choose different ones -> make a file explorer.
And so on... kinda like reading wikipedia, you start with some topic but end up in another topic far away ;-).
Thats if you want to program apps... there are lots of types of devs.... apps, roms, themes, kernel...
Now don't say you want to learn everything .

Thanks & more
Thanks for being the first to reply! And also for the info. I've done a little programming, vb and java, but am more interested in the rom/kernal side of things. Seen the vid before! Awesome!
I tried searching the site for what I'm looking for but unsuccesfull, figured the best way to get forward in this site, and get specific info, was to post a thread in one of the only places I could. Reread the rules and newbie posts, and figured out the reasons but they dont bother meat all.
Guess I'm looking more of an answer to this question, from everyone who replies:
How did u get to where u are now? (be it app dev, device help, other software dev)
Again thx for the help! P.S. what software do u use to program? And which os is preferred, linux, windows, mac?
I'm learning linux as fast as I can and wouldn't mind help there either if its out there.
Sent from my Xoom. Via whatever the heck I want!

I started with knowledge in C++,C,SystemC and some script languages from university + plus some knowledge about programming in general.
We had to use java in the university but i never properly learned it (just couldnt be bothered). I knew the ideas behind it and some concepts.
I actually only started learning java after i had written the exams (one which was about java but thank god didn't require actual working code in the exam ).
This was winter 2010.
So after i no longer had to learn it, i wanted to learn it and started out pretty basic.
Used google alot tried the basic tutorials, i.e. button doing something and so on.
After that got boring i was looking for an app with an actual purpose.
I made a voice recording app, did some bounty requests, wrote a control app for a modification from another xda member and some other stuff, cba to list it all now .
I use the android sdk + eclipse. Currently on windows 7, but that doesn't really matter. I've got a laptop with linux and a virtual machine with it too. It just that i also play video games for which windows is somewhat required and so i'm programming on it too. But it doesn't really matter. Eclipse and android sdk don't really differ on the OSs.
For compiling kernels, you might need linux, but maybe its possible under windows too... (cygwin)... don't really know ;-)
The thing is, you don't need to read 5 books, have 2 degrees in X to start.
Let's take custom ROMs.
No one actually builds those things from scratch.
90% of them are just other ROMs(custom or stock) that have been modified to some extend.
Download a ROM, unpack it, swap some files, change some scripts/configs, maybe recolor some things, add some extra apps, maybe a different kernel.
Repack it and XING you made a custom ROM.. now just flash it and see if it works, if it doesn't... well try again
Trial&Error...
You will get more knowledge about what you can change and what can be done with the time.
There is a custom ROM tutorial thread somewhere on xda, just search for it.
I'm going to write a little bit on my next app now

[Q] Learning coding

I'm looking to learn how to code, mainly because its something that has always interested me but I have never done. I have no experience in it at all. I'm looking for a book that can set me up with the very basics in java (or is it better to start off with a different language?) and hopefully I can move on from there.
If anyone knows of any good books that could help me I would greatly appreciate a link to it.
Thankyou.

http://goo.gl/xB9rK
Why does no one use the search before opening another thread?
Ohnoez
http://www.google.com/cse?q=learn+c...ub-2900107662879704:fs7umqefhnf&ie=ISO-8859-1
Wut?
http://www.google.com/cse?q=learn+d...ub-2900107662879704:fs7umqefhnf&ie=ISO-8859-1
I seriously could not find an answer to your question by using the search function.
http://www.google.com/cse?q=learn+p...ub-2900107662879704:fs7umqefhnf&ie=ISO-8859-1

So even on sophisticated websites like this there are still childish idiots like yourself on them. Yes you're probably right in that I should have searched before creating a new thread, however obviously I didn't think of that.
Maybe next time you should try and show maybe at least an inch of maturity when posting. Oh and for someone who would like me to donate to them and buy/download their apps you're not going the right way about it.
I dont know if that because you joined before me or have more posts than I do, this makes you think you have some superiority over me or new members, but it doesn't and remember with every new member is potentially another donation to you for your work. So if you want to carry on alienating these member towards you then carry on but if you don't then you might want to re-think your mentality towards them, because personally I wont be donating or ever downloading any of you apps.
With that said, thankyou for the links.

SxcKieranGrr said:
So even on sophisticated websites like this there are still childish idiots like yourself on them. Yes you're probably right in that I should have searched before creating a new thread, however obviously I didn't think of that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What you are seeing is my lack of understanding for people creating new threads with topics that have been covered a hundredtimes over.
I'm merely calling you out for your obvious mistake of not using the search.
You made the mistake, deal with it.
childish idiots like yourself
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. May i call you lazy idiot?
SxcKieranGrr said:
Maybe next time you should try and show maybe at least an inch of maturity when posting. Oh and for someone who would like me to donate to them and buy/download their apps you're not going the right way about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't want anything from you.
You want something from this forum, more exactly from its members.
You want an answer.
You did not pay anything for the knowledge available for free here, neither the time a member puts up to help you out.
What you could do is show some courtesy by using the search function to not waste the time of people who are willing to help out.
I dont know if that because you joined before me or have more posts than I do, this makes you think you have some superiority over me or new members, but it doesn't and remember with every new member is potentially another donation to you for your work. So if you want to carry on alienating these member towards you then carry on but if you don't then you might want to re-think your mentality towards them, because personally I wont be donating or ever downloading any of you apps.
With that said, thankyou for the links.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both my join date and post count are indirectly related to this.
It just means that i have seen too many threads like this, which could have been avoid by a few seconds of search.
What is more astonishing is that i still browse the question and answer forums to help people out.
Yeah maybe some people won't get the answer they wanted to hear, but hey you got your answer.

Im confused now, from looking around it looks like python is the most basic of languages but if i was to start with a dummy book for that, would it actually help me achieve learning java? I dont want to get the wrong book and be completely lost because I havent learnt the complete basics.
It seems like everyone says different things and I cant get a clear answer of where to start.
@Dark3n I'm not going to sit here and argue, you have your view I have mine let's leave it at that. If you would like to help me (which somehow i doubt) that would be great, thanks.

SxcKieranGrr said:
Im confused now, from looking around it looks like python is the most basic of languages but if i was to start with a dummy book for that, would it actually help me achieve learning java? I dont want to get the wrong book and be completely lost because I havent learnt the complete basics.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The most basic language would be machinecode (ASSEMBLER).
But beleive me that it is really painfull to write and learn.
Python is a nice language to write in, no doubt.
But you should think about what you want to do with your programming skills?
Something Android related?
Then you should look at C for linux kernels and the lower levels of android.
or
Java for Apps and the higher levels of the android os.
If you want to learn java there is no advantage in learning python first, besides that you can program in python and java.

I would like eventually to create an app for android, which is obviously done in java but if i got even the most basic of java books would i still be lost?

Edit: I just remembered there was a thread similar to this one where i already had a lengthy discussion about this topic.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179816
SxcKieranGrr said:
I would like eventually to create an app for android, which is obviously done in java but if i got even the most basic of java books would i still be lost?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not totally lost, you will learn about variables, if statements, loops, classes etc. those things are all still valid when writing apps. Those somewhat remain valid through most of the programming languages.
But basic java does not cover connecting your java code with the android user interface or making use of any android feature (rotate display, sensors, telefon,gps,etc.).
But seriously you don't need a book. Of course you can get one if you really want to. I would probably search the amazon bestseller list for something on android programming (for dummies) which does not require previous programming knowledge.
You can also just jump into it, google for "android hello world tutorial" or something like that.
But the official hello world tutorial should do.
Should make you able to write your very first app pretty quick. It's only a "Hello World" app, but hey thats where everyone starts out.

Aside from the programming itself, knowledge of Linux and *nix orientated operating systems would be useful. Terminal commands and such will prove invaluable if you take application development to a professional level in the future.
C and Java are obviously what's mainly involved in Android. But if you want something simple to begin with look at HTML and CSS (which are basically just translation matrixs not languages).

DeviateDefiant said:
Aside from the programming itself, knowledge of Linux and *nix orientated operating systems would be useful. Terminal commands and such will prove invaluable if you take application development to a professional level in the future.
C and Java are obviously what's mainly involved in Android. But if you want something simple to begin with look at HTML and CSS (which are basically just translation matrixs not languages).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HTML and CSS knowledge would help a bit with the android user interface, but not with the actual code of the apps/programs themself.
I would advise the OP not to start with HTML and CSS if he wants to get into the programming buissness.
Unless you are going to make webpages HTML and CSS takes you pretty far of the track.

HTML and CSS knowledge would help a bit with the android user interface, but not with the actual code of the apps/programs themself.
I would advise the OP not to start with HTML and CSS if he wants to get into the programming buissness.
Unless you are going to make webpages HTML and CSS takes you pretty far of the track.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HTML and CSS, are two useful skills to have regardless. As you mention for interfacing, and also for the ability to work with Web Apps in the future. For myself learning Javascript and PHP has certainly helped with getting into Java/C.
Certainly HTML/CSS aren't related to learning Java and C but it's a good entrance point to coding in general. Although you yourself may see it as sidetracking, it can help some not to jump in at the deep end.
I wish the OP the best of luck.

Hey dar3n, I had posted a similar thread as well, minus all the attitude, but I agree it does get posted alot, after talking to u and searching around a bit. Why dont u get someone to make a sticky post in one of the newbie rooms, or the q&a. Start a sticky discussion and I bet half these posts dissapear.lol

[Q] A question to any developer willing to answer...

I wasn't sure where anything like this would go, so I made sure to put it in a forum as general as possible.
I'm a beginning web designer, but seeing as I spend most of my free time on this site, I'm growing more of an interest in learning to code for the mobile platform. If anybody is willing to help, all I'm asking for is a few tips from developers here on where to begin.
I learned some very basic java in college, but was wondering if there is a better path to go on. Do I start with BASIC? Do I continue and go towards more advanced Java and stick with only one programming language?
Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
-Considering I've done almost everything that I can with my rooted EVO, all of you were the people I'd rather hear from. I appreciate all of the hard work that you all have done!

You can develop full market apps using the language I use called basic4android.
Its easy to use but very powerful, produces a native android apk (so no interpreters) and has regular updates.
There are free user contributed libraries that make it even better and it has been used to produce everything from live wallpapers and anti theft apps to games and gps software so is a good option to consider.
I wrote my first app after messing about with it for about an hour and was amazed how easy it makes things. Google basic4android and you will find its homepage for more info. I can't remember the address as it's saved as a bookmark on my pc not phone.
EDIT: did a google search and its at http://www.basic4ppc.com/
Dave
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk

Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
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