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A few days of programming on iOS and Android illustrates a vast difference.

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Re: A few days of programming on iOS and Android illustrates a vast difference.

#31

Post by rkalla »

mahmud wrote: post #4
andymoe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to hear a good java book recomendation. Is there a K&R kind of book for java? I also have to say that maybe iOS is bit easier to get started with but have the author come talk to me after doing ten or twenty apps wrangling core data, list view, sprites, physics engines, universal apps and mixing c c++ and objectice-c and tell me that rabbit hole is not pretty damn deep.

Hortsman & Cornell's, two volume "Core Java 1.2". I only read the first. Gosling's "The Java Programming Language". And Josh Bloch's "Effective Java". After that, Java Concurrency in Practice. Langr's "Agile Java" is good for just that. Bloch, Goetz, and Doug Lea have each written excellent books on java concurrency. That's just about all the java books I would want to recommend. Many j-books are trash.

+1

Effective Java is a must-read once you understand Java. It points out what is magic and what is not. What takes up processing time and what doesn't.

It pulls the sheet back on the abstractions and shows you how everything works and what you should be aware of.

Doug Lea is a brilliant developer in the concurrency space. With his Executor framework that went into (Java 5?) he suddenly made threaded programming as easy as possible to get right.

Re: A few days of programming on iOS and Android illustrates a vast difference.

#32

Post by bendmorris »

Counterpoint: I just began developing my first Android app a few days ago, a turn-based strategy game. I've only had an Android device for a month or so so the platform is relatively new to me, and I didn't even know Java (although, to be fair, I knew C# fairly well a couple years ago, which is arguably the same thing plus type inference.) In a few days, with relatively few problems, I was able to build an app and I'll be releasing it in various markets soon (once I stop polishing and let it go, which is hard for me to do.)

I found the experience to be straightforward and intuitive. I was able to find tutorials for any task I couldn't figure out myself and the API documentation is perfectly adequate. Working with images and settings files are two areas where I was very pleasantly surprised at just how easy it was.

There were some minor frustrations. The Android emulator fought me a little so I started just debugging on my actual device. Debugging certain problems can be difficult, Eclipse can cause headaches and throw random nonexistent exceptions, etc. but overall I think you've vastly overstated the difficulty level of jumping into Android development. "The depth of knowledge of in design patterns required is so great..." It's really not. With almost no experience with Java or Android, I've put together a working app in a few days that, in my opinion at least, is pretty good, and that works on various mobile devices with different resolutions and capabilities.

Some other things I'm happy with about the Android platform: the SDK is free, Android is open source, you're very unrestricted with regards to what your app can do, and Android Market developer accounts cost a one time fee of $25 instead of $100 a year.

Re: A few days of programming on iOS and Android illustrates a vast difference.

#35

Post by dpcan »

zyb09 wrote: post #34

Well you're new to Android so things seem weird at first. It's all a matter of picking up the underlying concepts. To be fair ObjC and Cocoa looks for most Java devs like voodoo, but once you get it it becomes easier, too.

Exactly. This article was completely one-sided.

He also failed to see the huge amount of community support there is for Android developers too. There's so much information inside multiple forums you would almost never be unable to find an answer to a problem.

Re: A few days of programming on iOS and Android illustrates a vast difference.

#36

Post by jmelloy »

hahainternet wrote: post #23
shaunfs wrote: post #19

Screw it, I'm psyched! It's a great time to be a mobile developer! I was going to write a whole response regarding iOS vs Android until I realized the debate is like religion or politics. Currently both platforms are great and only getting better with each iteration. I'm developing for both platforms and loving it. Just in the latest iterations look at what we can do. iOS * AirPlay - My phone will be my gaming consol…

Here's my question. In this (somewhat ungrounded in Android reality) article the poster makes the claim that on iOS, you 'just get' a few seconds to finish off everything. This does not seem like a sustainable model. If my app and the next app a user launches are both memory heavy, I expect my app to be killed to make space. How does this process work on iOS? Also, nobody really seems to understand how amazing Intent…

You get notified when the user switches apps away from yours, so at that point you quicky get your shit together and assume you could be killed at any time.

Re: A few days of programming on iOS and Android illustrates a vast difference.

#37

Post by dpcan »

bendmorris wrote: post #32

Counterpoint: I just began developing my first Android app a few days ago, a turn-based strategy game. I've only had an Android device for a month or so so the platform is relatively new to me, and I didn't even know Java (although, to be fair, I knew C# fairly well a couple years ago, which is arguably the same thing plus type inference.) In a few days, with relatively few problems, I was able to build an app and I'…

Just a word of advice on Android, polish your app really well before launch. The Android Market comment system is relentless. If you don't have a smashingly nice app out of the gate, you'll probably get a couple 1-star "sucks"/"rubbish" reviews before you can finish your post-launch exhale.

Re: A few days of programming on iOS and Android illustrates a vast difference.

#38

Post by dpcan »

Tractiable wrote: post #26

Develop for the iOS platform in Cocoa, develop for Android in Adobe AIR. Best combo I have found!

Why not develop for iOS in Flash/Air too and have one code base? I personally think the Air download requirement on Android is a still a pretty big deterrent for most users.

I really wish Adobe could have found a way to build Android apps so you basically distribute a small Air runtime bundled with your AS code as an App instead of requiring the Air system be installed separately.

Re: A few days of programming on iOS and Android illustrates a vast difference.

#39

Post by Pooter »

dpcan wrote: post #35
zyb09 wrote: post #34

Well you're new to Android so things seem weird at first. It's all a matter of picking up the underlying concepts. To be fair ObjC and Cocoa looks for most Java devs like voodoo, but once you get it it becomes easier, too.

Exactly. This article was completely one-sided. He also failed to see the huge amount of community support there is for Android developers too. There's so much information inside multiple forums you would almost never be unable to find an answer to a problem.

> This article was completely one-sided.

It was one person's subjective experience of switching platforms; it's not intended to be a balanced examination of API design across platforms.

Why so tetchy?

Re: A few days of programming on iOS and Android illustrates a vast difference.

#40

Post by aerique »

stretchwithme wrote: post #25

Haven't tried programming Android, but not crazy about objective c. But Apple's documentation is stellar and easy to access.

Agreed. I have no love for Apple and I'm developing directly on my jailbroken iPhone through SSH and even then the documentation is very useful.
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