Android Programming

698 Pages·2015·10.1 MB·English

Android Programming for
Beginners
Learn all the Java and Android skills you need to start
making powerful mobile applications
John Horton
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Android Programming for Beginners
Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing
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First published: December 2015
Production reference: 1221215
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78588-326-2
www.packtpub.com
Credits
Author Project Coordinator
John Horton Nikhil Nair
Reviewers Proofreader
Nayanesh Ramchandra Gupte Safis Editing
Klaas Kabini
Márton Kodok Indexer
Monica Ajmera Mehta
Paresh Mayani
Graphics
Commissioning Editor
Kirk D'Penha
Edward Gordon
Production Coordinator
Acquisition Editor
Nilesh Mohite
Nadeem Bagban
Cover Work
Content Development Editor
Nilesh Mohite
Divij Kotian
Technical Editor
Mrunmayee Patil
Copy Editor
Neha Vyas
About the Author
John Horton is a coding and gaming enthusiast based in the UK. He has a passion for
writing apps, games, books, and blog articles about coding, especially for beginners.
He is the founder of Game Code School, http://www.gamecodeschool.com, which
is dedicated to helping complete beginners to get started with coding, using the
language and platform that suits them best.
John sincerely believes that anyone can learn to code and that everybody has a game
or an app inside their mind, but they just need to do enough work to bring it out.
He has authored around a dozen technology books, most recently, the following:
• Android Game Programming by Example (https://www.packtpub.com/game-
development/android-game-programming-example)
• Learning Java Building Android Games (https://www.packtpub.com/game-
development/learning-java-building-android-games)
Thanks to Jo, Jack, James, Ray, and Rita.
Also to everybody at Packt Publishing who lent a hand with this
book: Edward Gordon, Divij Kotian, and Mrunmayee Patil. Thank
you for your continuous support throughout this journey.
About the Reviewers
Nayanesh Ramchandra Gupte is an enthusiastic Android professional based
in Bangalore—the Silicon Valley of India. He is a full-stack engineer and has been
exploring Android for more than 5 years. Until now, he has worked with different
organizations and developed more than 40 Android applications. Some of these apps
are featured with the Top Developer badge on Google Play. Programming, especially
in Java and Android, is not just a part of his career, but his passion as well.
Besides being a software engineer, he works as an Android consultant and is
associated with the Google Developers Group based in Bangalore. Writing personal
blogs and articles on Java and Android remain a couple of his interests. He works as
a professional Android trainer and pursues teaching and illustration as his hobbies.
Associated with one of the e-commerce giants in India, Nayanesh is a part of the core
engineering team. He also works closely with the Product and UX team to build a
next-generation platform for e-commerce.
You can know more about him at https://about.me/NayaneshGupte, and you can
find him on LinkedIn at http://in.linkedin.com/in/nayaneshgupte/.
To begin with, I credit my parents who have always nurtured my
dreams and constantly supported me to make them happen. I want
to thank my fiancée, Aakanksha, and my in-laws who trusted my
dynamic decisions while I was hopping cities and organizations with
the aim of improving my career graph. I sincerely want to thank
Sudarshan Shetty, my guide, because of whom I got engrossed in
Java and Android. His teachings have brought me a long way. I am
sure there is much more to explore. I owe a lot to my best buddies,
Saurabh and Rahul, since it was all because of them that I decided to
get into this field of programming. Lastly, the journey would have
been incomplete without my colleagues and mentors, Rishi and
Vishal, from whom I learned what passion for programming really is!
Márton Kodok has extensive experience as a web, mobile, and desktop software
engineer. He has also been a backend programmer and team leader, where he
mostly concluded projects for various U.S. companies. He is a lead developer in
various scalable projects and an active contributor to scalable solutions such as
Beanstalkd Console and Riak-admin interface. He is an expert in databases and
search systems such as Google, BigQuery, and Elasticsearch. He is also an active
member of Stack Overflow, has spoken at many conferences, and has mentored
many young, talented enthusiasts. You can find him at ro.linkedin.com/in/
pentium10 and http://stackoverflow.com/users/243782/pentium10.
Paresh Mayani is a software engineer who has been exploring the horizon of
Android development since Cupcake (Android 1.5). He has hands-on experience of
designing, building, and publishing Android Apps. His skills range from technical
documentation, UX/UI design, code and performance optimization, to writing
extensive testing for applications.
He's actively involved in the Android community too—writing blog posts, helping
fellow Android developers by posting answers on Stack Overflow, and giving talks
around the world. He is among top 0.25% with and manages more than 60,000
reputation points. He is one of the top 10 highest contributors to the Android tag on
Stack Overflow.
He is the founder/organizer of the Google Developers Group, Ahmedabad, India.
By looking at his experience and his contribution to the Android community, he was
recently nominated for the Google Developers Expert program led by Google. You
can find more about him at his blog, http://www.technotalkative.com/.
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