Android Tutorial 91

Many beginning developers are questioning themselves about the area of the software development they want to build their career in and I was one of them (I'm still beginning, but I did choose already). Today there are several major areas you can focus on. Operation Systems (Windows, Android, iOS etc.) - here you would write pretty low-level code that would handle interaction with the hardware. Game Developing - could be broken down into many subcategories, such as game engines, UI in games, gameplay etc.  Mobile - building apps for mobile devices running Android, iOS, Windows Phone etc. This area is growing really fast nowadays because of new mobile devices. Android is embedded in TVs, cars, VR and IoT (I personally think, that someday Android development would be one of these major areas of software development itself). The Web is growing just as fast as mobile, and the reason for it is online clouds. Almost everything is going to the web, it's convenient, you can access it al...

In my opinion, learning is a lifelong process, and that's a popular point of view today mainly because it's information age. Knowledge now is the most powerful tool, not the only one that is needed for success, though. Furthermore, without it, no other tool can help you achieve it. I think that you already know the importance of learning if you read this blog. So today I'll give you my top 10 learning resources for Android Developers. 1. Udacity Udacity  is my favorite online-learning platform. And I think it'll always be. The enthusiasm and passion with which its' CEO and co-founder Sebastian Thrun develops and maintains the platform are encouraging. First of all, it worth to mention that Udacity is not an Android tutorials platform. There are a plethora of courses and nanodegrees for different professions and specialties, such as iOS, web development, tech entrepreneurship, machine learning, cloud computing and so on and so forth. With his platform, Sebastian Thru...

Kind of strange title for a blog which aims at motivating people to learn, isn't it? But I really think that passion is not moving people forward much. Passion is unstable and inconsistent. It can be helpful on first steps but after that, it leaves you with yourself. What Is Passion To avoid any misunderstanding I want to define what I mean when I say "passion". I personally, see passion as an imaginary friend that I think will do much of the work with me. When you just starting out, it's really great to have that one friend because you think that you can move heaven and earth. But with time passion leaves and you don't feel like doing anything you started with it. Look at this as walking with someone arm-in-arm. You two maybe want to move with different speed, but often this speed defined by the slowest one. And it's sad to admit, but passion is slowing down every day, and one day it just stops. But how to overcome this? How to keep you doing what you was so ...

It's so much easier to publish your app in Google Play than in Appstore, that's why there are so many similar apps in Google Play. It creates conditions for healthy competition among developers. To perform well in this competition you should always keep your app better than the others. But what if your app is already losing? What if there is an app that has a larger audience than yours? Actually, I think that it's not even a problem. It's an opportunity! An opportunity Wait, what? An opportunity? Why losing to another app is an opportunity? Because you losing a battle not the war! Actually, I think that software market is a place where nobody can win the war. It's Infinite War (not the Infinity War, though), with many many small battles. Still, why losing a battle is an opportunity? Because if you analyse the reasons of losing, and why your opponent is winning you can gather very useful information. With this information, you can come up with a plan that is even bet...

There are two common problems in software development, lack of knowledge and lack of ideas. For today's post let's consider the second one. Lack Of Ideas Suppose you have, decent skill in software development, so what other you need to start developing software? Right, the Idea (and IDE of course).  So where do you find them? This question is often the main struggle for many software developers. Common Pattern Look at apps on your smartphone. What is common between all of them? Yes, they are all some way useful, not productive, though, but useful. An app should be useful It's surprising how many devs don't understand that. Every app is useful in its own way. Some app lets you manage your personal finances, some helps you with time management, there are a bunch of apps that let you stay connected with friend and family (e-mail/messenger apps), and some of them help you avoid boredom (I still have Flappy Bird installed for the emergency case). So most of the apps (not onl...

Read 1'st part of this post  where I talk about Learning While Developing. Hi! Today I'll tell you about the second (and I think the right one) way of combining learning and development. This way I call Developing While Learning. Oh wait, sounds like it is the same thing as Learning While Developing, isn't it?  Yes, it might sound like the same thing, but in fact, it's opposite. Let me explain what it all means. The essence of Developing While Learning As I said Developing While Learning is the opposite to Learning While Developing, so you might already guess the essence by yourself. Developing While Learning is about creating some product while learning something. But it shouldn't be your dream project. It should be something appropriate for your level. With time, probably your learning projects will be more difficult, but when you're starting out don't go right off the bat. Even most experienced developers start with "Hello world!" app when they ...

I think there are two ways of combining these two things, today I will tell you about one of them Learning While Developing. The Example of Learning While Developing Consider you have the idea you passionate about, like a web or mobile app that solves all peoples problems at once. So you want to implement it as fast as possible, but you don't have much knowledge about the app development. So you decide to start developing and just learn new things while doing your app. So basically, it's about this approach, you have something you really serious about and you don't have much knowledge about how to do it. Is it a good approach? First of all, let's find out the reasons to do things that way You're really passionate about your idea. You are afraid that somebody can "steal" your idea and implement it while you still learning. You want to do it as fast as possible.  You think it'll be a great success. And now let's find out is it a good approach. I'...

Every moment when you do something for the first time is truly unforgettable. So my first Android app was not an exception and this blog post will not be the one. The event It was about half a year ago on VL Hackathon #4, a local hackathon provided by great people, mostly volunteers. Hackathon lasted for 48 hours and for this time these people treated us as well as they could. Of course, I was not alone, there were two teammates Vasiliy Nikiforov and Peter Nazarov who are also in my study group. If you think that we already knew what to do and how to act on hackathons you're totally wrong, that was our first one. Actually, we didn't even know how to use Android Studio! But we picked the idea, not the best one (actually, I think one of the worst ideas we could pick :) ) , but the easy one, that  idea which we could implement within 48 hours without any knowledge about Android Development and with only one member of our team who knew Java at some decent level, it was Peter....