what i need to develop android apps/games

hey David , i have been recently entering to your blog , and i wanted to know what are the requirements for android dev , how much it might take me approx. ? , is there a specific programming ebook you advise with ?
and thanks :wink:

All you really need to start Android development is a computer (Windows, Linux or Mac). You can download the Android SDK for free from Google, and get started developing. You don’t even need a phone - Android has an emulator you can run on your PC for testing apps.

The time requirement depends on your prior knowledge of programming. If you’re already familiar with Java, it shouldn’t take very long to get started with Android at all. A couple of weeks should be enough to play around with the sample code and build your first decent app

If you haven’t had any programming experience though, it will take a lot longer to get familiar with the development process. Taking an introductory course in Java programming could be helpful before looking at Android itself.

Generally I’m not a big fan of ebooks for teaching programming - the best way to learn is by actually doing it. But if you’re looking for some published insights from an experienced developer, I’ve found Richard Harris’ ebook has some good anecdotal advice. He covers the process of curating ideas, and actually getting the app from an idea to reality.

Just going to add some links, David already pointed out the most important stuff:

Android SDK download:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Eclipse package:
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-ide-java-developers/indigosr1

And then, you need to install the android development tools for eclipse:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html

Once you installed all that, you are ready to get rolling. If you start a new android project in eclipse, you can chose to create a project from an existing example - that’s quite useful, the sdk comes with a few.

If you have never worked with eclipse, you’ll probably going to need around 3-7 days to get everything up and running, depending on your luck / endurance / amount of time.

It’ll need especially one thing: Google, Google, Google and more Google.

If you have problems, you’ll find usually answers on stackoverflow, it has some nice resources by now on answering questions when dealing with problems.

Thx guyz , btw david i have no background of any programming languages but i an so ambitios to develop HQ apps/games , thanks for helping , and do you know a way to learn java basiscs ? Thx

Can’t go wrong with this Java tutorial for the basics.
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/

Once you’ve gotten yourself comfortable with Java (and, as previous posters have said, I can’t stress enough how important this is before you delve further), I’d recommend this book for developing Android games:
http://www.apress.com/9781430230427

I bought , hello android isnt this enough ?

U can also use a game development tool such as unity. Then u can export your game to Android, or any other platform that they support.

Before Java I learned Assambler and Pascal 15 years ago. In JAVA, I have all the books, Hortsmann, Shildt and Eckel course-“Thinking in Java” is not a book is what that battle with a brain. It is very difficult !!! Then I began to search for dozens sites with simple examples, this site is the best in my opinion. It gives a complete picture of Java. And even there it has some JavaEE.

http://www.monkeys-at-keyboards.com

@AngryAlex you missed the whole world of object oriented programming :slight_smile: 15 years ago assembler was a “must” if you want to get decent performance out of your computer (I remember programming games with assember parts in it) but it is indeed a completely different world and not of much use nowadays. (pascal was always useless g, there was borland c)

If you get the hang for OO Programming it doesn’t make any huge different for an developer if he uses java, .Net or any other high level language - they are very similar … for a pro, because you need to know a lot of how to do things best on each specific language and platform.

Very true - you’ll need to get the hang of OO programming and then most of the other concepts should come pretty easily. Java does have a few idiosyncrasies which I’m still learning about, but ultimately if you understand OO concepts it shouldn’t be too hard to work with Java in the Android context.

Even an old C++ book might be able to help you with this. I remember some examples of building classes in C++ which could be helpful for OO concepts in general. Just remember - in Java, nearly everything is a class!