Anyone into Android programming?

[emjay]

Fair enough Benny. I didn't mean to offend you. If you want to reach the biggest audience you can then Windows is the way and also the simplest way - anyone can find any program on the net, download it and install it and it's ready to go. With Linux it's comparatively a nightmare and a completely different process, more akin to using an app-store than true freedom. And if you want to run Windows software you have to use either an emulator or Wine, and in my experience Wine only runs a small proportion of Windows programs. So yes, Linux is very limiting software-wise.

I'm not offended on any level, don't worry about that.

I find it very hard to tell on a forum. That's why I'm so bad at debating, because I don't want to upset people. Anyway, night night

[emjay]

@Benny
Just letting you know the laptop's going back for a refund and I won't be getting the same one again because research indicates they may be prone to this sort of problem due to a design flaw. So it looks like I'll be getting a Windows 8 laptop after all - which is fine. So it's just going to be a little break from Unity and Blender while I get that sorted. Any recommendations of what I should get? And do you think a Surface would be worth considering?

[bennyboy]

@Benny
Just letting you know the laptop's going back for a refund and I won't be getting the same one again because research indicates they may be  prone to this sort of problem due to a design flaw. So it looks like I'll be getting a Windows 8 laptop after all -  which is fine. So it's just going to be a little break from Unity and Blender while I get that sorted. Any recommendations of what I should get? And do you think a Surface would be worth considering?

That's the kind of thing I can just never make myself actually pay for, but I'm always pretty excited when I can get my hands on one.

Are you talking about a Surface3 Pro?  You will definitely want to google this issue.  The main issue seems to be the CPU power (are you going for the cheapest atom-based processor?) and whether some programs do/don't handle touch input.  I pretty qucikly got interested because some Surface3 models are pretty cheap (like the same as a cheap laptop), and I fell into the youtube review rabbit-hole.  There are a LOT of comments all over the internet and youtube about the Surface and how it works with different programs.

If it was me, and only for Unity, I'd just buy the cheapest new-model laptop I could find, becuase I already know that will run Unity. If it was for my daughter, who likes drawing and design, I'd be tempted to go for the Surface.

[emjay]

@Benny
Just letting you know the laptop's going back for a refund and I won't be getting the same one again because research indicates they may be  prone to this sort of problem due to a design flaw. So it looks like I'll be getting a Windows 8 laptop after all -  which is fine. So it's just going to be a little break from Unity and Blender while I get that sorted. Any recommendations of what I should get? And do you think a Surface would be worth considering?

That's the kind of thing I can just never make myself actually pay for, but I'm always pretty excited when I can get my hands on one.

Are you talking about a Surface3 Pro?  You will definitely want to google this issue.  The main issue seems to be the CPU power (are you going for the cheapest atom-based processor?) and whether some programs do/don't handle touch input.  I pretty qucikly got interested because some Surface3 models are pretty cheap (like the same as a cheap laptop), and I fell into the youtube review rabbit-hole.  There are a LOT of comments all over the internet and youtube about the Surface and how it works with different programs.

If it was me, and only for Unity, I'd just buy the cheapest new-model laptop I could find, becuase I already know that will run Unity.  If it was for my daughter, who likes drawing and design, I'd be tempted to go for the Surface.

I think the cheap version has 64gb of storage which is the only thing I'm worried about... whether it would be enough. But I'm guessing that since the Windows 8 OS is designed to be similar to, if not the same as, the Windows Phone OS it might be much smaller. Don't worry I'll do as much research as I can before deciding what to buy - shoulda really done that with the other one as well but I was so keen to get started with Unity. Usually I'm very thorough when preparing to make a big purchase.

But if I don't opt for a Surface I think I'll just go for a Samsung laptop, because it's a brand I trust and with excellent additional features (whereas this HP had nothing extra - it was clearly a bare bones system which was good in some respects but not others). And I'd want one with a touch screen just to get the most out of Windows 8.

[bennyboy]

If you are just going to install 3 or 4 programs, then 64gb should be fine. I'd worry about the processor speed because if you're constantly building and rebuilding your Unity game, you'll want to crunch those numbers reasonably fast. Any modern i5-based laptop will easily run Unity.

[dyresand]

I've done a bit of Android programming (but nothing professional and nothing on Google Play) and just wondered if anyone else has and what their experiences of it are?

I find it really hard going, unintuitive, and not much fun at all - but it is the wave of the future I guess so still worth pursuing. Does anyone actually enjoy it?

There's just so much to learn and every time you do learn something new it doesn't help with learning anything else, so in other words nothing seems interrelated and therefore the whole thing just feels impossible to master... I feel like a perpetual newbie and end up spending most of my time on Stack Overflow asking questions.

And unlike the usual case with programming I think the hardest part of Android development is actually creating a UI (whereas in say VB.Net that part is essentially just drag and drop). You think something like a listview should be the easiest thing in the world but it takes a lot of learning to customise it in even the simplest and most common ways (such as checkboxes, changing colours, and group headings) - and it's like that with every single UI element... and don't get me started on fragments  

I guess I'm just wondering if it gets easier with time and if there is ever a point when it truly clicks and you just 'get it' and thereafter don't have to spend all your time asking questions and can actually make intuitive assumptions?

Anyway it's been a while since I last worked on it. I have Linux, Eclipse (I know Eclipse is no longer Google's IDE of choice but it's all my little netbook can handle and in any case all that's available for my distro of Linux) and a half-finished app on my phone (which granted does a good job at what it does but lacks a decent UI). The question is, is it worth rekindling that interest?

I know android programming and java very well and i honestly have to say it sucks because i was using Eclipse IDE and it is the worst IDE for college work ever.

[emjay]

I know android programming and java very well and i honestly have to say it sucks because i was using Eclipse IDE and it is the worst IDE for college work ever.

Hi dyresand
I think Google prefers you to use Android Studio now don't they? I've never used it myself, only Eclipse, have you? I can't believe you got to do Android programming in College, you're so lucky we never did any specifically programming units in college but now it seems to be all the rage - you with android and benny teaching Unity - I wish I had been born ten years later So how are you doing with android, still interested in it? Any projects on the go?

PS, signups for the next mafia game are in progress and CD needs at least two more players, so if you wanted to give it another try you'd be very welcome

[bennyboy]

 we never did any specifically programming units in college but now it seems to be all the rage - you with android and benny teaching Unity

I don't teach in college. I teach elementary students in an afterschool English business, just for hoots. That's how easy it is in Unity to get something, anything, onto an android phone.

[emjay]

 we never did any specifically programming units in college but now it seems to be all the rage - you with android and benny teaching Unity

I don't teach in college.  I teach elementary students in an afterschool English business, just for hoots.  That's how easy it is in Unity to get something, anything, onto an android phone.

That's really cool. I'd guess Unity is a great introduction to programming for kids that instils a lifelong interest in some of them? Much as Amos did for me when I was a kid. Do you give your students free reign to go wherever their imaginations take them, and end up with all sorts of weird and wacky games, or do you follow a more strict curriculum of tutorials, or both?

Anyway, back to me I'm definitely leaning towards a Surface Pro 3 now. 128gb storage, i5 processor, 4gb RAM (I think), for about £670. I haven't got a decent tablet and I've always wanted one so it seems a good idea. And since it says it comes with a stylus of some kind I think that could be ideal for Unity because apart from the small amounts of code you write, most of it's about changing settings or manipulating objects in the 3D view. I'm not certain about getting this yet, and the laptop's going back for its refund today so will still have to wait for that to come through and hope there are no complications, but I am leaning towards the Surface. If not that, Samsung as I said

PS I don't suppose you'd be interested in giving mafia a try? It's very very addictive and once you've played one I'm sure you'd be hooked

[Rhizomorph13]

I wish Unity had existed when I was a kid. I would have loved the interface and spent hours creating the games I wanted to play. I don't have that kind of free time these days so I only hack away at it now and then instead of being able to devote whole weekends to writing code. I used to write in BASIC using QuickBasic on a DOS machine; that was when I created actual games. Before that I wrote on a TRS-80 and just did a bunch of set(x,y) points to create pictures. It was so frustrating when the picture didn't look right. I would have to scan through all the code to see which point was wrong!