Android Training

History of Android

• Android development began in 2007
• SDK was released by Google
• Java was established as the development language for Android
• Eclipse plugins became available for developers

Purpose of Android

• The primary purpose of Android development is to implement controllers in Java code for user interfaces
• Java can also be applied to building procedural components
• Examples include data entities and validation
• Google owns Android development and publishes various releases of the SDK: https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/index.html

Sample Uses of Android

• Business apps that replace or parallel current web applications
• GPS-powered navigation and other location services
• Games
• Numerous other apps for business and personal use

Difficulty Level

• Java as applied to Android development is relatively easy to learn
• Developers with C or C# experience can be up to speed in a few days
• Object-oriented programming with Java can be challenging to learn
• The core API documentation for Java is useful and is available at https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/

Learning Android

• Experienced programmers can quickly get up to speed with the basic syntax of Java
• XML is also a part of learning Android development
• Comprehensive Java for Android API documentation is available: https://developer.android.com/reference/java/lang/ref/Reference.html

The Good

• Relatively straightforward to learn
• Cross-platform development
• Excellent core API documentation
• Great Google support

The Bad

• Object-oriented programming style in Java can be challenging to learn

The Future

• Continues to grow
• SDK updated frequently by Google
• Android Studio should provide a powerful workbench to assist developers with building and deploying Android apps

Syntax

• Statements and semicolons
• Curly brackets denote scope
• Case sensitive
• By convention
  1. Lowercase variables and method names
  2. UpperCamelCase class names

Keep Learning Android

by taking a

Webucator Android Class

"Stephen was a great instructor. He keeps a good pace with the class and draws on real world experiences to help solidify concepts by drawing parallels with technology that I am familiar with. He is very positive and colorful, a real pleasure throughout the last 5 days!"