Day One with Android.
I had a very brief play with the Eclipse Android IDE this evening. I followed the web training course on setting up an Android device emulator and putting together a very basic program.
Have to say I have no clue what the code was that was used. Some stuff was selected and I had a screen with Hello World on. It seems to me the only thing I actually did was chamge the app icon.
The IDE seems cluttered to me. Maybe that's becuase I am used to the (relativelg) clean lines of the old Borland C/C++ compiler. And, frankly, I have no real clue what the code was doing, or even where it was. I will revisit this and inspect the various elements that my choices brought into the mix. I might even learn some Java along the way! It's such a shame that Android is based on Java. Android is where I have a spare test device, but I didn't get on with Java when I tried it years ago. Mind you, that could be because I didn't really take to object-oriented programming in general. I did (and still do) consider it overkill, but I guess I need to get over my 1980s procedural language bias. Yes, I liked Pascal, so shoot me.
My first aim is to create a little note-taking app (I believe there is a tutorial for this - but that isn't why I chose it). I have Slide Notes on my phone and use it quite a lot. It is slow and clunky on my Nexus 7, so I want one that isn't. Just for quick non-synced notes. I don't want a ToDoist, an Evernote, or Onenote. I have all of these, but really, just to record a quick note-to-self, I want something that opens quickly, with no fuss, and saves easily. And I want to build it myself.
Of course, if I could suddenly understand everything about programming and the web, get an ADN developer membership and build the very best Android app, that supported NiceRank and all sorts of other things that people want, well that would be fab. Somehow I doubt my abilities will ever stretch that far.