Ask HN: Should I start with Android for mobile development?

Re:Ask HN: Should I start with Android for mobile development? by orionblastar on Tuesday January 07, 2014 @01:17AM (#7015948)

It sounds good. Since I have a Visual BASIC background, what is the best place to start learning? I assume the Android SDK can use an IDE to 'paint' forms and drag and drop controls and then I just write the code for events for each form element to do something?

Like say I want to write an app to read some integers and then report the average, mean, and median of the numbers. I'd have to have a main form, a data entry form to enter the numbers, and then a results form that displays the statistics I generated with an option to go back to the main form or the data entry form to enter new numbers? I still have to learn Activities, Fragments, Adapter and such?

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4, and a Nook HD. My son has an iPhone 5 and iPad 3. I've heard in the USA that iOS devices dominate but in the rest of the world Android devices dominate. Is that true?

Thanks for the advice, I just need to get back into the game eventually and then my programming mind will just kick right back in I hope.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Should I start with Android for mobile development? by jervisfm on Tuesday January 07, 2014 @01:58AM (#7016067)

Not the OP, but for some start-up resources on Android check out the following:

The Android Training Guide is not a bad place to start at: http://developer.android.com/training/index.html

That should give you a bit of idea of what android development entails.

More resources:

* Android Bootcamp Videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf7z_mrce00&list=SPE953C0B85B...

If you'd like a guided video walkthrough through android, this is an excellent source.

* Android Cookbook Book: http://androidcookbook.com/home.seam Has solutions to common problems. Also check out their code on Github: https://github.com/AndroidCook/Android-Cookbook-Examples

* BigNerd Ranch Android Book: A detailed reference on all about Android Development. http://www.bignerdranch.com/book/android_the_big_nerd_ranch_...

As always despite all these resource, I find that the best way to learn is to just get your hands dirty. Use the resource to get a sense of the Android development world and solidify that understanding by doing a small project like the one you described here.

Hope this helps a bit.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Should I start with Android for mobile development? by orionblastar on Wednesday January 08, 2014 @07:41PM (#7027970)

Thank you, it sure does help. I'll see about if I can afford the Android Cookbook book, and I like that I can read parts of it online as well.

I love the Github code, I can just load it and tweak it a bit to learn. It should really help, thank you again.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Should I start with Android for mobile development? by piyush_soni on Tuesday January 07, 2014 @02:36AM (#7016163)

For your device domination question: Yes - Android is around 80% of the world's smartphones now. Also, latest news published a few hours back says Android has beaten iOS in US too this year, with iOS market share falling to 43.1, whereas Android's share rose to 50.3 from last year. Source: http://www.latinopost.com/articles/2814/20140106/ios-vs-andr...

[ Parent | on HN ]