Thread: Hey All

Hey All I am New to the Forums.

I just wanted to Say Hi but also ask What are my First steps as a Complete Beginner to Both Programming Java (or really any Programming Language) and this Forum. So might I ask Where do I start?


The only Experience I really had with Java was in Eclipse trying to create a Hello World app and if it explains how much of a beginner I am at both Androids version of Programming & Java it took me 6 Hours to get the app even to show up on the phone and another 3 hours of scratching my head wondering why the Icon wasn't showing.. than after a couple more courses I read through I finally got to some Real Java and it was overwhelming for me did not understand a thing. I know most of you are going to say Java will take at least 7 Years to get any Good at it and even then your still considered a beginner. Well my Question is. How can i get on the fast track of learning this so I could make some Practical uses for Android. i.e making a Notepad or some little app just to learn... How long from Complete beginner till I can start making Practical applications with Java?

I also Know Android Uses XML. But I found this to be pretty straightforward and Easy (reminds me of XHTML)


Reason I posted this in here I have no idea where to ask it on the forums as I do not understand a thing lol


Thanks all!

I guess you have seen the android developers website. It has good instructions for setting up and using Eclipse. One thing that beginners overlook is the need to follow the instructions very closely. (not your fault of course, you can't be expected to appreciate, to begin with, what is significant and what is not) Make sure you get the result you should at every step, and then experiment.

If you have problems with a particular "recipe" it will help here - or anywhere else - if you post a link to the instructions you are following as well as a description of the problem: ie the exact point at which you get different results from the tutorial you are following, and the results you get. Don't be afraid to start over if you have the slightest suspicion you might have screwed up a few steps before. It's painful to begin with, but that's par for the course.

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You do need to spend time getting use to the Java language: what sorts of things you can express and how you express them, also how programs are constructed (made up out of classes). The tutorials and whitepapers etc on the android developer's site are very good, but once you move beyond saying "hello" to the world they do assume some facility with the language.

Get yourself a good book. Something recent and secondhand from Amazon, eg. Sadly computing books are infuriatingly wordy, and there's nothing you can do about that. (Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson made a huge contribution to computing, but Kernighan & Ritchie's classic had zero effect on $-driven authors and publishers.) But a thorough introduction to the language is needed (and, imho, a print version helps). Oracle's Tutorial is indispensable and should be bookmarked and consulted often as you code.

However you go about learning the language you can afford to spend little (or no?) time on Swing if your intention is Android programming. Android has its own approach to GUI programming. The android developer's site describes the Android specific things well but, to repeat, you will need to spend time on the nuts and bolts, and it is not time wasted.