April 8, 2013 at 03:24Resources Every Android Developer Should Know About
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Today I want to share with you my free translation of an article written by Sergey Povzner. Sergey maintains a blog bongizmo.com and is developing tourist guides under the general name Citybot .
While Android continues its incredible growth , more and more programmers are starting to develop applications on this platform. If you start your journey today, then you are definitely lucky. In recent years, Android has matured significantly and got rid of many childhood diseases. Information on the platform is more than enough. I’ll talk about the most important resources.
This article will be useful for both beginners and experienced developers. This is a guide to the world of Android development.
It may seem that learning a new platform from books these days is a very outdated method, and you may be right. But you still have to do it — check out Jeff Atwood's article. Programmers don't read books — but you should .
I recommend these two books:
Before you start writing your first application, carefully study Android Design . Especially these articles:
Be sure to look into the downloads section - there you can find templates and source codes for various icons and widgets.
Well? Ready to write code? Sorry, we continue to read:
Google engineers as well as experienced programmers regularly answer interesting questions. Here are the top best Stackoverflow Android experts. I have subscribed to many people's RSS feeds, here are just a few: CommonsWare (Mark Murphy), Dianne Hackborn , Romain Guy , Reto Meier , Trevor Johns , Roman Nurik , Adam Powell .
In many blogs you can find very useful and relevant information:
Despite the fact that Google+ has not become a social network, for us it is a valuable source of information on Android. Here are a few people to watch out for: Tor Norbye (ADT), Dianne Hackborn , Romain Guy , Chris Banes , Roman Nurik , Nick Butcher , Adam Powell , Rich Hyndman , Cyril Mottier , Paul Burke , Jeff Gilfelt .
Be sure to round off Jake Wharton (Jake Wharton). Jake gave us ActionBarSherlock, ViewPageIndicator, NineOldAndroid and many other open source libraries for Android.
Also, you can join these communities on the same Google+:
Reading someone else's code is a useful activity. Especially when it comes to:
Well, and of course, an endless source: Android source code .
Here are some of the most useful libraries:
If you are still not enough, look for a github . Also, DevAppsDirect is an excellent collection of open source views, widgets and libraries.
Getting a ticket to Google I / O has become almost impossible. But all performances are available online (usually even with slides). Here are links to sessions of different years: 2012 , 2011 , 2010 , 2009 .
Here are some of my favorite lectures:
If the article seems a little intimidating to you, do not despair. Some links will be useful only for beginners, while others may be interesting for developers of all levels who want to create the coolest Android applications.
A few tips on how to learn all this effectively:
Talented developers make a big contribution to the prosperity of the Android development ecosystem. Among them, I would especially note two. These guys played a huge role in making the life of an ordinary Android developer easier. I'm talking about Mark Murphy (Mark Murphy) and Jake Wharton (Jake Wharton).
Mark and Jake earned a lifetime unlimited beer for the biggest and most useful contribution to Android open source. If you ever meet them, be sure to buy them something to drink for their choice. [correction for comments from the original post: better give beer for Mark to Chris Bane, and the best reward for Mark would be your subscription to his book.]
Of course, let's not forget the Android developers and designers from Google, who did a great job on Android. Some of them were mentioned above.
That’s it, friends. Now you have everything to make the coolest app! Well, not really: you still need a cool designer, but this is a topic for a separate post. But what can we say now for sure - you are ready to write your first Android application.
Happy coding!
PS: I am not a translator, and Russian is far from my greatest strength. I just want this great article to be on Habré. Therefore, please write comments on all errors (spelling, grammar and stylistic) in PM. I will try to fix everything quickly.
While Android continues its incredible growth , more and more programmers are starting to develop applications on this platform. If you start your journey today, then you are definitely lucky. In recent years, Android has matured significantly and got rid of many childhood diseases. Information on the platform is more than enough. I’ll talk about the most important resources.
This article will be useful for both beginners and experienced developers. This is a guide to the world of Android development.
Books
It may seem that learning a new platform from books these days is a very outdated method, and you may be right. But you still have to do it — check out Jeff Atwood's article. Programmers don't read books — but you should .
I recommend these two books:
- The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development , written by Mark Murphy . Deep coverage (over 2000 pages) and regular updates make this book special. Of course, this is the best model for a book that talks about such an actively developing topic as the Android SDK. Subscribers have the opportunity to ask Mark questions during open hours. Examples from the book are available on the github . Mast Reed!
- Smashing UI by Juhani Lehtimaki . A great book for any Android developer who cares about a good UI design.
developer.android.com
Before you start writing your first application, carefully study Android Design . Especially these articles:
Be sure to look into the downloads section - there you can find templates and source codes for various icons and widgets.
Well? Ready to write code? Sorry, we continue to read:
- UI Tips and Tricks ( Required Reading)
- Performance Tips and Tricks
- Learning how to work effectively with bitmap
- Using animations (also see the NineOldAndroids library )
- SDK Tools Help
- SDK examples
Stackoverflow
Google engineers as well as experienced programmers regularly answer interesting questions. Here are the top best Stackoverflow Android experts. I have subscribed to many people's RSS feeds, here are just a few: CommonsWare (Mark Murphy), Dianne Hackborn , Romain Guy , Reto Meier , Trevor Johns , Roman Nurik , Adam Powell .
Blogs
In many blogs you can find very useful and relevant information:
- Android Dev Weekly . Author - Dzhiyuri Grell (Gyuri Grell). A great weekly with news from the world of Android. Highly recommend.
- The official blog of Android developers. It is worth to dig in old posts - many are of interest, such as: How to avoid memory leaks , memory analysis Android-applications
- Romain Ki (Romain Guy). An excellent blog of a key engineer on the Android platform. Once you are comfortable with the development, be sure to read the Android Performance Case Study . Using one twitter client as an example, the author analyzes various aspects of the analysis of application performance. Offtop: in addition, Romain is also a great photographer .
- The creator of the animation framework in Android, Chet Haase (Chet Haase), keeps a blog Codependent
- The CommonsBlog Mark Murphy
- Blog Android developer Cyril Mottier (Cyril Mottier). A fantastic blog with very deep articles. Among the latter: Tips for using ListView # 5: increasing the click area , Tweets about Android development , Utopia of the second version of the Google maps API , On the right approach to launching the application , Pull-to-refresh: antipattern .
- We decorate Android (Styling Android) with Mark Allison.
- Thoughts coder (Coding Thoughts), which leads Daniel Lew (Daniel Lew) - notes of one of the developers of the application Expedia Hotels & Flights
Google+
Despite the fact that Google+ has not become a social network, for us it is a valuable source of information on Android. Here are a few people to watch out for: Tor Norbye (ADT), Dianne Hackborn , Romain Guy , Chris Banes , Roman Nurik , Nick Butcher , Adam Powell , Rich Hyndman , Cyril Mottier , Paul Burke , Jeff Gilfelt .
Be sure to round off Jake Wharton (Jake Wharton). Jake gave us ActionBarSherlock, ViewPageIndicator, NineOldAndroid and many other open source libraries for Android.
Also, you can join these communities on the same Google+:
Open Source: Projects
Reading someone else's code is a useful activity. Especially when it comes to:
- Google I / O app . If you want to copy something, there is no better place.
- Photup by Chris Banes
- Android Prototypes: Deep Immersion in Location by Reto Meier. The application demonstrates the use of location, fragments, and backup manager. Use carefully - the code has not been updated for some time.
Well, and of course, an endless source: Android source code .
Open Source: Libraries
Here are some of the most useful libraries:
- ActionBarSherlock by Jake Wharton. A library that allows you to use the native action bar on fours and custom on twos using the same API and theme.
- ViewPagerIndicator by Jake Wharton. Library widgets are compatible with ViewPager from the Android Support Library and with ActionBarSherlock. Used to improve navigation.
- NineOldAndroids by Jake Wharton. Allows you to use the Animation API from Honeycomb on the earliest versions of Android.
- Universal-Image-Loader by Sergey Tarasevich ( nostra ). A powerful and flexible tool for asynchronously loading images, caching and displaying them on the screen.
- UrlImageViewHelper from Koushika Datta (Koushik Dutta). Automatically substitutes the image uploaded to the specified link in ImageView. Able to save and cache.
- Android-BitmapCache by Chris Banes. Special cache for working with Bitmap objects.
- DiskLruCache by Jake Wharton. Java implementation of LRU cache on disk oriented to Android compatibility.
If you are still not enough, look for a github . Also, DevAppsDirect is an excellent collection of open source views, widgets and libraries.
Lectures with Google I / O
Getting a ticket to Google I / O has become almost impossible. But all performances are available online (usually even with slides). Here are links to sessions of different years: 2012 , 2011 , 2010 , 2009 .
Here are some of my favorite lectures:
- Advanced design for engineers. Alex Faaborg and Christian Robertson (2012)
- Smooth UI. Chet Haase, Romain Guy (2012)
- Navigation in Android. Adam Powell, Richard Fulcher (2012). Talk about how to make the right navigation and not confuse the user.
- So you read the design guide. Now what? Daniel Lehmann, Tor Norbye, Richard Ngo (2012)
- What's new in Android? Chet Haase, Romain Guy, Daniel Sandler (2012)
- What's new in ADT? Xavier Ducrohet, Tor Norbye (2012)
- Memory management in Android applications. Patrick Dubroy (2011)
- We are writing fast Android applications. Brad Fitzpatrick (2010)
- Development of REST clients. Virgil Dobjanschi (2010)
Please stop! You're scaring me
If the article seems a little intimidating to you, do not despair. Some links will be useful only for beginners, while others may be interesting for developers of all levels who want to create the coolest Android applications.
A few tips on how to learn all this effectively:
- First, read the books. Did I mention that you should read books? This will lay the right foundation in the knowledge of the Android platform.
- Subscribe to blogs and RSS feeds with stackoverflow.
- Create an Android dev circle on Google+
Android Stars
Talented developers make a big contribution to the prosperity of the Android development ecosystem. Among them, I would especially note two. These guys played a huge role in making the life of an ordinary Android developer easier. I'm talking about Mark Murphy (Mark Murphy) and Jake Wharton (Jake Wharton).
Mark and Jake earned a lifetime unlimited beer for the biggest and most useful contribution to Android open source. If you ever meet them, be sure to buy them something to drink for their choice. [correction for comments from the original post: better give beer for Mark to Chris Bane, and the best reward for Mark would be your subscription to his book.]
Of course, let's not forget the Android developers and designers from Google, who did a great job on Android. Some of them were mentioned above.
End finally
That’s it, friends. Now you have everything to make the coolest app! Well, not really: you still need a cool designer, but this is a topic for a separate post. But what can we say now for sure - you are ready to write your first Android application.
Happy coding!
PS: I am not a translator, and Russian is far from my greatest strength. I just want this great article to be on Habré. Therefore, please write comments on all errors (spelling, grammar and stylistic) in PM. I will try to fix everything quickly.