8 tips to learn Android App Development as a beginner
When I first started to learn native android app development, I was overwhelmed by the amount of resources I found online. I had trouble finding where to start with, which resource to follow and when to actually start working on it. Today with an experience of 3 years I figured out 8 tips that I hope would pave your best way into android development.
1.I suggest you to have a good knowledge of java before jumping into android development. Although Kotlin is now declared as the official language for android, I feel that it would be easier to learn Kotlin once you have enough experience in java. You can follow this link to learn java as a beginner. I didn’t learn using the resource but, codecademy provides you with an online IDE to practice along as you read. I feel that’s the best way to learn programming.
2. If you are familiar with java as part of your college curriculum, I suggest you to read SCJP or OCA/OCP books by Kathy Sierra for a deeper understanding. I’m mesmerised by the way things are explained in this book. I didn’t write the OCA certification exam but giving it a good read without the exam perspective gave me in depth knowledge of java. You may save the topics that are non-essential for later. But don’t miss the basics. I highly recommend reading the below topics: Object Orientation, Inner Classes (we will be using them a lot in android), Threads, Generics and Collections.
Basics is everything. Find a resource that seems better and follow it till you are comfortable with the basics.
As one of my teachers at high school advised about learning in general, I followed a single resource until I was comfortable with the basics. This helps us in handling the anxiety of learning something new.
3. I started off with the youtube playlist here. This one helped me with an introduction, setting up Android Studio, setting up an emulator, some of the most used widgets and basics of using on-device database SQLite. Make sure that you use the latest dependencies and android packages. Official android documentation can help you with this.
EDIT: I don’t recommend the above playlist as it’s outdated as of now. You can follow this playlist from Google. Also keep these for reference: https://www.udacity.com/course/android-basics-nanodegree-by-google--nd803
https://developer.android.com/courses
Practice as you read or watch a video. This is very very important. You can’t really understand your progress unless you get your hands dirty. Whenever you have a doubt or get stuck, google it and you will mostly find good answers. Many people had been there and faced the issues that you face.
4. If you clear any doubts in your head soon, you can understand the next topics with a better perspective. So don’t delay finding answers to your questions. Look up on websites like stackoverflow. It’s a great community that saves your day(s).
5. Once you are good with the basics, build simple apps on your own. Some of the ideas for beginners are: Calculator, FlashLight, To-do list etc. As you build the apps, you will face some issues. Solving those gives you good exposure.
6. Once you build some simple apps, don’t think that the knowledge is enough to build android apps for the rest of your life. It’s time to improvise. You can go through google’s codelab for beginners here. It gives you an idea about some of the best practices. Cultivate good coding practices from the beginning. Because learning them as a beginner is better than unlearning bad practices when you realise later. Look up for best coding practices in Android. You can find great resources.
7. Read open source code of Android projects on github website. Pick up the basic projects. Clone them and play with them. As you go through those projects, observe the way they name variables, methods, classes, the way they organise global variables, constants and strings. This blogpost by Aritra Roy explains the best practices in depth. I have put this as a long term reference for myself.
Don’t rush through things. Give yourself enough time to understand what’s going on behind a piece of code while being consistent with your practice. At least the basics. Always experiment with the code as you learn.
8. Once you have learnt to write decent code for android apps, you can explore the latest techniques like the libraries: Retrofit, ButterKnife, Glide, Picasso, Rxjava, Dagger, Room, architectural patterns like MVP, MVVM and the Kotlin language. As you keep going, there will be so many exciting things to learn and use in your development. Be hungry to learn to get better each day.
