Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

Book Preface

As beginning Android programmer, you face a steep learning curve. Learning Android is like learning to live in a foreign city. Even if you speak the language, it will not feel like home at first. Everyone around you seems to understand things that you are missing. Things you already knew turn out to be dead wrong in this new context.

Android has a culture. That culture speaks Java, but knowing Java is not enough. Getting your head around Android requires learning many new ideas and techniques. It helps to have a guide through unfamiliar territory.

That’s where we come in. At Big Nerd Ranch, we believe that to be an Android programmer, you must:

write Android applications

understand what you are writing

This guide will help you do both. We have trained hundreds of professional Android programmers using it. We lead you through writing several Android applications, introducing concepts and techniques as needed. When there are rough spots, when some things are tricky or obscure, you will face it head on, and we will do our best to explain why things are they way they are.

This approach allows you to put what you have learned into practice in a working app right away rather than learning a lot of theory and then having to figure out how to apply it all later.

You come away with the experience and understanding you need to get going as an Android developer.
Prerequisites

To use this book, you need to be familiar with Java, including classes and objects, interfaces, listeners, packages, inner classes, anonymous inner classes, and generic classes.

If these ideas do not ring a bell, you will be in the weeds by page 2. Start instead with an introductory Java book and return to this book afterward. There are many excellent introductory books available, so you can choose one based on your programming experience and learning style.

If you are comfortable with object-oriented programming concepts, but your Java is a little rusty, you will probably be okay. We will provide some brief reminders about Java specifics (like interfaces and anonymous inner classes). Keep a Java reference handy in case you need more support as you go through the book.