Cletus Ajibade

Co-founder & CTO, Babymigo.com

Dec 13, 2017

This is a very common question to developers who want to learn a new language or newbies who are just starting out in their programming journey. For me, I would advice you understand the approach you want to take. There several ways to develop android apps: native, hybrid, or even mobile web. All these approaches have their different development environments and tools you have to set up. They all have their individual learning curves, especially for newbies. But hybrid apps may be easier for someone who is already a developer on the web stack. Personally, I prefer the native route and I do a lot of native android development.

So after getting a grasp of what approach and tool you want to employ for your development, then take a small project and work on. Overtime I have observed that just watching online courses without having a project to work on is a mere waist of time. Its's best to learn by doing. So pick a small project or one you have done in another language and rewrite it in android. Download the necessary development environment, setup and go through the 'getting started' section on android development website. You are good to go.

Google, in collaboration with Udemy, has developed great courses for beginners, developers, and even advanced android courses that are free online. Please see the link below.

developers.google.com/training/android

Adebisi Adebayo Paul

Software Developer (.Net,Angular 4,Android,Entity framework)

Dec 14, 2017

A good write-up. I discovered getting your hand dirty by coding along with online demo project is helpful too..Am i right?

Very correct Adebisi, it will help you have a solid grasp of the whole development process. By the time you get your hands dirty, like you said, you discover by yourself what reading books or watching online courses will never help you discover. It is good to read books or watch courses, but it is more beneficial to learn by doing. Work on projects, debug errors, go online and seek solutions yourself.

Let me give you an example: a boy who wants to learn how to repair a car or who wants to become a mechanical engineer can be fascinated by the inner workings of the automobile system through the documentaries he watches or the fancy magazines on car design he reads. He also reads complex mechanical engineering manuals and books. I bet you, he will only know the principles and theories behind those engineering concepts, which is good. But he will never carry out the repair of a car if he does not go to a mechanic workshop to do the actual practice. He needs to dismantle the engine, find faults, ask questions, make mistakes again and again, and be corrected before he fully understands how to repair the car. Then he does this over and over again for a very long time before he masters the craft to the point that when he is faced with a different type of car, he knows exactly how to approach the problem.

This is true of programming as well. You need to make mistakes and also learn how to fix those bugs yourself, this is a building process. It will help you grow and make you a better programmer.

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