Working my Way through The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development

kennyc · 09-06-2010, 01:14 PM

I purchased the entire collection from CommonsWare as Ebooks reading on my Sony, calibre and FBReader as I work through the examples using Netbeans (and Ant a bit).

I'm about halfway through the first book at this point. Interesting stuff and well presented I think.

kennyc · 09-12-2010, 03:02 PM

Have slown down a bit on my progress since actually receiving my Droid X. Still forging ahead though and have been able to deploy and test a couple of apps on the actual hardware.

jeffcobb · 09-17-2010, 09:32 PM

Kenny; When I worked at Sony a few years ago I helped write part of the layer that lived between the Linux kernel and Dalvik for the XPeria X10 (which I freaking love). Now that they are available in the US one of my team-mates sent me a developers version that I can hack away at; I cannot wait. My coding was about 90pct C++ and the rest Java/Android so I am not that great at Android yet. I think my first project is going to be a decent .CBR/.CBZ reader for Android (running in on my X10 and hopefully my Nook which also run Android) so I can finally read my manga w/o using a laptop/netbook.

Anyhow all of that aside I am writing to ask what you thought of the Busy Coders book; I ordered it once from Amazon and when it didn't show up in a week I checked the status and the estimated date of arrival was 4 months in the future. I am way too into the instant gratification thing to wait so I canceled it and bought Android Wireless Application Development (Shane Conder and Lauren Darcey) instead; it is based on an older rev of the Dalvik VM but that is fine b/c so is the X10 (1.6). The reason for that is that the UI has been heavily updated/skinned and the kernel now gens Facebook, MySpace, etc events and pushes them (along with things like media updates and synchronization) through the JNI to Android for the "Timescape" and "Mediascape" interfaces. Still, the Busy coders book looked interesting (why I tried to buy it in the first place) so I would like to know your thoughts on it when you finish. I am beyond the space of needing a dummies book but Android and Java in general take a different mind-set than I have been working with the past decade or so (firmware and embedded stuff). I almost wish there was a "Tao of Android" book out there somewhere. Still one of the funnest projects I have worked on....

kennyc · 09-17-2010, 09:43 PM

Jeff, I'm into the "....Advanced" book now. I'm just kind of pushing through to get a better understanding/feel and working a few of the examples (using Netbeans). I think the books are great. They certainly don't get down to the level of the Dalvik machine but that's not the intent either. They do give a great feel for the OS overall and discuss it's features and idiosyncrasies. I bought the subscription directly from Mark on his website $40 for a year for all his books -- which is cheaper than one of the books in paper.

http://commonsware.com/

Instant gratification too.

kennyc · 09-17-2010, 09:44 PM

Loving my DroidX btw -- been reading these books on it as I walk early mornings in the twilight.

jeffcobb · 09-17-2010, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

Jeff, I'm into the "....Advanced" book now. I'm just kind of pushing through to get a better understanding/feel and working a few of the examples (using Netbeans). I think the books are great. They certainly don't get down to the level of the Dalvik machine but that's not the intent either. They do give a great feel for the OS overall and discuss it's features and idiosyncrasies. I bought the subscription directly from Mark on his website $40 for a year for all his books -- which is cheaper than one of the books in paper.

http://commonsware.com/

Instant gratification too.

Wow too cool for words. Thanks Kenny! One last question about the ebook version; were they easy to work with on the Nook? By that I mean I have a number of software engineering books, C++, Python, UNIX, etc on PDF and they are really hard on the eyes...they are the only kind of book that made me wish for a dead-tree version...

jeffcobb · 09-17-2010, 10:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

Loving my DroidX btw -- been reading these books on it as I walk early mornings in the twilight.

I have a batch on my X10 too; maybe I just need a better app (I too use FB reader on Linux on my netbook when I read with that, works simply but great) or maybe just spoiled by the larger screen size on the ereader but I find I have to flip pages too often (landscape or portrait mode) so I only use the X10 in emergencies (reading emergencies? did I just say that?)...I am off to that site to order...tks again mate!

kennyc · 09-17-2010, 10:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffcobb

Wow too cool for words. Thanks Kenny! One last question about the ebook version; were they easy to work with on the Nook? By that I mean I have a number of software engineering books, C++, Python, UNIX, etc on PDF and they are really hard on the eyes...they are the only kind of book that made me wish for a dead-tree version...

Once I figured out how to import them into Aldiko it was better as FBReader is cutting off the right side of some of the long lines in the included example programs. I also bring the book up in the calibre viewer when I'm working through the examples on the desktop.

EPub is always better then pdf as far as I'm concerned, easier to change font sizes etc.

jeffcobb · 09-17-2010, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

Once I figured out how to import them into Aldiko it was better as FBReader is cutting off the right side of some of the long lines in the included example programs. I also bring the book up in the calibre viewer when I'm working through the examples on the desktop.

EPub is always better then pdf as far as I'm concerned, easier to change font sizes etc.

Yep that has been exactly my experience with the PDFs I mentioned; just awkward to read.

What is Aldiko? Is it like Calibre or is it a reader or a format or...? we like epubs the best for the same reasons...

jeffcobb · 09-17-2010, 10:45 PM

Like the Mountain Dew commercial, been there, done that. Got em all as epubs (except for the newest one that only is partially done; that only showed up as a PDF (meh).

Thanks again mate; will be sliding them onto the Nook after dinner (plus we doing a Dark Angel marathon on the video-on-demand system I concocted on Linux)...

jeffcobb · 09-17-2010, 11:09 PM

Well I got the epub versions loaded on my Nook which promptly spread all four books out over my 750+ book collection and I had to go page by frakking page through 74 pages of books before I found them all. The good news though is that they seem to be written more from a UNIX perspective (good for me) and actually look good on the screen. Thanks again for the tip.

kennyc · 09-18-2010, 05:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffcobb

Yep that has been exactly my experience with the PDFs I mentioned; just awkward to read.

What is Aldiko? Is it like Calibre or is it a reader or a format or...? we like epubs the best for the same reasons...

An ebook reader app for Android.

jeffcobb · 09-19-2010, 06:53 PM

This afternoon I decided to get my Android dev game going and I gotta say it has gotten about 1000% easier than it was in the wild and wooly days on 1.0 and 1.2. And this is on Linux too

Now however I gotta start my climb out of the conceptual basement from embedded to Java (again).

kennyc · 09-19-2010, 07:50 PM

Cool!

I've not done much of anything this weekend, but just read another chapter in advanced...

jeffcobb · 09-19-2010, 08:07 PM

Well I must admit that while the install was easy, it was a long download (I just told it to install the world once Eclipse was set up and the Android plugin was installed) so we spent the hours enjoying a Roger Corman cheeze-fest (Deathrace 2000 and Galaxy of Terror) on the VOD. Not for everyone I know but we laughed like hell). Now that the install is done and everything is tweaked I am not sure where I want to go first plus it is nearly dinner-time here in Vegas so I may just do some orientation reading in the busy coders book or in the dead-tree book I bought. Now I just gotta screw my head back down to the chip level for work in the morning

09-06-2010, 01:14 PM	#1
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,872 Karma: 118716293 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	Working my Way through The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development I purchased the entire collection from CommonsWare as Ebooks reading on my Sony, calibre and FBReader as I work through the examples using Netbeans (and Ant a bit). I'm about halfway through the first book at this point. Interesting stuff and well presented I think.

09-17-2010, 09:43 PM	#4
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,872 Karma: 118716293 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	Jeff, I'm into the "....Advanced" book now. I'm just kind of pushing through to get a better understanding/feel and working a few of the examples (using Netbeans). I think the books are great. They certainly don't get down to the level of the Dalvik machine but that's not the intent either. They do give a great feel for the OS overall and discuss it's features and idiosyncrasies. I bought the subscription directly from Mark on his website $40 for a year for all his books -- which is cheaper than one of the books in paper. http://commonsware.com/ Instant gratification too. Last edited by kennyc; 09-17-2010 at 09:46 PM.

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09-12-2010, 03:02 PM	#2
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,872 Karma: 118716293 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	Have slown down a bit on my progress since actually receiving my Droid X. Still forging ahead though and have been able to deploy and test a couple of apps on the actual hardware.

09-17-2010, 09:32 PM	#3
jeffcobb Groupie Posts: 152 Karma: 700 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Las Vegas Device: Nook, CoolER	Kenny; When I worked at Sony a few years ago I helped write part of the layer that lived between the Linux kernel and Dalvik for the XPeria X10 (which I freaking love). Now that they are available in the US one of my team-mates sent me a developers version that I can hack away at; I cannot wait. My coding was about 90pct C++ and the rest Java/Android so I am not that great at Android yet. I think my first project is going to be a decent .CBR/.CBZ reader for Android (running in on my X10 and hopefully my Nook which also run Android) so I can finally read my manga w/o using a laptop/netbook. Anyhow all of that aside I am writing to ask what you thought of the Busy Coders book; I ordered it once from Amazon and when it didn't show up in a week I checked the status and the estimated date of arrival was 4 months in the future. I am way too into the instant gratification thing to wait so I canceled it and bought Android Wireless Application Development (Shane Conder and Lauren Darcey) instead; it is based on an older rev of the Dalvik VM but that is fine b/c so is the X10 (1.6). The reason for that is that the UI has been heavily updated/skinned and the kernel now gens Facebook, MySpace, etc events and pushes them (along with things like media updates and synchronization) through the JNI to Android for the "Timescape" and "Mediascape" interfaces. Still, the Busy coders book looked interesting (why I tried to buy it in the first place) so I would like to know your thoughts on it when you finish. I am beyond the space of needing a dummies book but Android and Java in general take a different mind-set than I have been working with the past decade or so (firmware and embedded stuff). I almost wish there was a "Tao of Android" book out there somewhere. Still one of the funnest projects I have worked on....

09-17-2010, 09:44 PM	#5
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,872 Karma: 118716293 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	Loving my DroidX btw -- been reading these books on it as I walk early mornings in the twilight.

09-17-2010, 10:45 PM	#10
jeffcobb Groupie Posts: 152 Karma: 700 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Las Vegas Device: Nook, CoolER	Like the Mountain Dew commercial, been there, done that. Got em all as epubs (except for the newest one that only is partially done; that only showed up as a PDF (meh). Thanks again mate; will be sliding them onto the Nook after dinner (plus we doing a Dark Angel marathon on the video-on-demand system I concocted on Linux)...

09-17-2010, 11:09 PM	#11
jeffcobb Groupie Posts: 152 Karma: 700 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Las Vegas Device: Nook, CoolER	Well I got the epub versions loaded on my Nook which promptly spread all four books out over my 750+ book collection and I had to go page by frakking page through 74 pages of books before I found them all. The good news though is that they seem to be written more from a UNIX perspective (good for me) and actually look good on the screen. Thanks again for the tip.

09-19-2010, 06:53 PM	#13
jeffcobb Groupie Posts: 152 Karma: 700 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Las Vegas Device: Nook, CoolER	This afternoon I decided to get my Android dev game going and I gotta say it has gotten about 1000% easier than it was in the wild and wooly days on 1.0 and 1.2. And this is on Linux too Now however I gotta start my climb out of the conceptual basement from embedded to Java (again).

09-19-2010, 07:50 PM	#14
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,872 Karma: 118716293 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	Cool! I've not done much of anything this weekend, but just read another chapter in advanced...

09-19-2010, 08:07 PM	#15
jeffcobb Groupie Posts: 152 Karma: 700 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Las Vegas Device: Nook, CoolER	Well I must admit that while the install was easy, it was a long download (I just told it to install the world once Eclipse was set up and the Android plugin was installed) so we spent the hours enjoying a Roger Corman cheeze-fest (Deathrace 2000 and Galaxy of Terror) on the VOD. Not for everyone I know but we laughed like hell). Now that the install is done and everything is tweaked I am not sure where I want to go first plus it is nearly dinner-time here in Vegas so I may just do some orientation reading in the busy coders book or in the dead-tree book I bought. Now I just gotta screw my head back down to the chip level for work in the morning

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