Its fun to work on side projects. Even if they aren’t seen to completion, I find the sense of discovery or progress (depending on the project and its intended goal) made along the way satisfying.
Having carried around a Nexus 7 tablet for a while, I’ve decided I’d like to know what basic Android development is like. I’ve been playing a fair bit of Minecraft lately, and I figure I should spend some of that time trying doing something a little more productive.
As long as I remember to, I figure I’ll write about this side project for as long as it holds my interest. We’ll see how it goes.
This session’s goal was getting set up. Here we have the steps to get the SDK installed. The installer is a clean, straightforward process, and the SDK Manager seems to have a nice Package Management system.
Since it is recommended, I am going to try developing in Eclipse. My only previous experience with Eclipse was in a previous side project where I tried to develop an HP TouchPad application, and I did not enjoy using Eclipse. Since some of the Android walkthrough references this IDE, I will try it again in the hopes I will get a little more comfortable with it.
Everything seems to be installed and ready for development now. Time to start the tutorial…
October 15th, 2012 at 8:02 am
How do you like the Nexus 7? I was looking at one, but I’ve got the Galaxy Note as a phone so it seemed a little redundant.
October 15th, 2012 at 10:30 pm
I really like it. 7″ is a great size for email and calendar on the go, and for light web browsing. It was a great travel companion on vacation too. I’m pleasantly surprised at what apps are available for Android. There are still some iOS only games I’d want an iPad for, but we’ll see how the next year or so pans out.