Guest Dr00g Posted June 10, 2011 Report Posted June 10, 2011 (edited) How easy would it be to learn computer programing from scratch? I know the are loads of different types but I am talking about in javascript which is what android uses(sorry if I am wrong). Are there any good resources which you can recommend? Thanks in advance. Edited June 10, 2011 by Dr00g
Guest warwound Posted June 10, 2011 Report Posted June 10, 2011 Hi there. You have many options. The most complicated would be to learn Java (not Javascript) and then use that knowledge to write Android apps using the Android SDK (software development kit). You sounds like a beginner so this is not really a viable option - you need to be a competent Java programmer before you can even start writing apps with the Android SDK. I think the easiest way to start Android programming is with Google's App Inventor. With App Inventor you use your browser to create apps using a simple drag n drop interface, it's an easy way to get into app programming BUT has many limits. App Inventor includes only a limited number of features, so if you want to create a widget for example you're out of luck - App Inventor doesn't create widgets. PhoneGap is another option. PhoneGap let's you write web apps using HTML and Javascript. Basically you write a web app and PhoneGap compiles it to an Android app. So quick and easy to use if you already know some HTML and Javascript but also limited - again no way to create a widget and not all native Android functions can be accessed from your web app code. I'm not a Java programmer so have tried both App Inventor and PhoneGap but have not been impressed - they only allow you to prgram within a limited subset of the features available if you wrote real Android apps using Java and the Android SDK. What i have found recently though and am very impressed with is Basic4Android. (That link may or may not work - the Basic4Android website is having DNS issues and some pages are not available). Basic4Android let's you write Android apps using a version of the BASIC programming language. It gives access to lots of the Android feature set and let's you create quite advanced apps. The learning curve is acceptable too - you can start with the various demos and progress to writing your own apps in a short period of time. Basic4Android though is available only as a 30 day trial version and after that will cost you 39 USD but is well worth it if you are hoping to create some worthwhile Android apps. warwound
Guest Dr00g Posted June 10, 2011 Report Posted June 10, 2011 (edited) Thanks, I tried the app inventor and am currently playing around with the app inventor and have made a prank text spamming app with my friends numbers, I haven't tried it yet though. And I will look at your other links and try and make something actually useful! Now that I have finished my AS exams I find myself with little to do, so thanks for the reply. ;) Edited June 10, 2011 by Dr00g
Guest Tony Sidaway Posted June 10, 2011 Report Posted June 10, 2011 Learning to program Android would be a great way to have fun and expand your skills. If you have no programming experience at all I recommend that you start by installing Eclipse on your desktop or laptop and following one of the many free Java tutorials that are available on the web. Don't spend too long on this. Once you're comfortable with the idea of Java language syntax and the edit-build-test cycle, you're ready to move on. Once you've got the basics of writing, compiling and running simple Java applications on your computer, you're ready to progress to Android. The same Java language is used in Android but it uses a completely different library and the compilation process and the mechanics of how the computer (or smartphone) executes the program are different, but most of that is hidden if you use Eclipse. The other advantage of using Eclipse, or another integrated development environment (often referred to as an IDE) is that most of the donkey work of creating and managing an app is taken care of, leaving you with more time for the fun part--writing your code and testing it. Once you've installed the Android Development Kit there's an add-on for Eclipse that handles Android integration. The kit also contains plenty of working sample applications, and I recommend that you build and run some of them, then try changing them to make them behave as you want them to. That experience of modifying apps written by other people will make you much more confident in writing your own applications.
Guest Wasp_Box Posted June 10, 2011 Report Posted June 10, 2011 Tony, Thanks for the useful post. Just wondered if there is a particular "noob friendly" tutorial you would recommend? There seem to be a plethora of options.
Guest darren_ Posted June 10, 2011 Report Posted June 10, 2011 How easy would it be to learn computer programing from scratch? I know the are loads of different types but I am talking about in javascript which is what android uses(sorry if I am wrong). Are there any good resources which you can recommend? Thanks in advance. I started to learn how to program my Blade at the beginning of the year. I had learnt Java to an intermediate level a few years ago. I really would not recommend learning Java by programming your Android phone. I found debugging programs to be very frustrating - a lot of the time you will get a nearly-incomprehensible stack trace without even a mention of where the exception (error) occurred. Sometimes your application will not build, and Eclipse will not tell you where the error is (although generally it is in the layout XML's), and doing something as simple as forgetting to include an Activity's details in your manifest file will result in the application force-closing. Instead spend a few months learning Java (download the version of Eclipse for Java - there's plenty of tutorials on the web) and learn to write programs via this design environment. Do not spend time learning to write Java user-interfaces if you ultimately want to develop for your phone - text input/output is fine as Android uses it's own UI format. Writing UI's in Java persuaded me to move onto C# ! The Java tutorial at http://math.hws.edu/javanotes/ is very good. When you are competent at this you can move onto Android by downloading the Android Software Developers Kit, which will integrate into Eclipse. There are plenty of online tutorials showing various aspects of Android programming. However there is very little showing how to tie it all together into a real application. I can recommend the book "Sam's Teach Yourself Android Application Development in 24 hours". It's the only one I bought and I found it invaluable, even though I didn't work through each hour's tutorial religiously. Good luck.
Guest warwound Posted June 11, 2011 Report Posted June 11, 2011 Instead spend a few months learning Java Well i downloaded Basic4Android less than a week ago and have written my first app already. A 'store finder' app that gets the user's location using GPS, requests data for the nearest stores to the user from an online database, parses that XML data, builds a list view of the nearest stores and a click on any store in that list opens a Google Map showing directions from the user's location to the selected store. And i can't even write a Java app!! warwound
Guest darren_ Posted June 11, 2011 Report Posted June 11, 2011 Well i downloaded Basic4Android less than a week ago and have written my first app already. A 'store finder' app that gets the user's location using GPS, requests data for the nearest stores to the user from an online database, parses that XML data, builds a list view of the nearest stores and a click on any store in that list opens a Google Map showing directions from the user's location to the selected store. And i can't even write a Java app!! warwound You're obviously a natural programmer ! There's a bit more work involved in getting you're head around the concept of a modern object-based programming language but there are significant advantages. Looking at the tutorial code examples on the Basic4Android website it does not seem a million miles from the sort of code you'd need in a Java program, except the syntax is different with Java being more terse. I think that if someone had to learn programming from scratch I'd still recommend Java rather than this- it may take a bit longer to pick up, but would give a better foundation if you wanted to do anything other than Android apps. Each to their own I guess.
Guest ColdEmbrace Posted June 11, 2011 Report Posted June 11, 2011 Quick note just found this http://www.buzztouch.com/pages/ Didn't really like it but then im not so sure what I am after in terms of app design
Guest Tony Sidaway Posted June 11, 2011 Report Posted June 11, 2011 (edited) Tony, Thanks for the useful post. Just wondered if there is a particular "noob friendly" tutorial you would recommend? There seem to be a plethora of options. I agree there are loads of them. If you would like a video tutorial, try this: http://eclipsetutorial.sourceforge.net/totalbeginner.html It's based on the Europa edition of Eclipse (3.3) but if you follow it using a more recent version (I use 3.5.2, Galileo) there should be few surprises if any. A more formal introduction to the language is provided by Oracle here: http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/ Concentrate on learning the basics of the language and how to use Eclipse. I don't think you should spend months on Java. You should be able to pick up the basic concepts reasonably quickly, and those will transfer well to Android. Edited June 11, 2011 by Tony Sidaway
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