CODE CLAN WEEK 8 - ANDROID - LIKE PUTTING YOUR PANTS ON TWO LEGS AT A TIME!

So I'm at the halfway mark (Trumpets and fireworks) 8 weeks down and 8 weeks to go.

This week was the second full project week and the task was to create an Android App on Android Studio and Java.

 

The task I picked was to create a basic ToDo list. Simple in principle when you have pen and paper, but gets hard when you want to program it in Java, and even harder when you add in the Google Android operating system.

No matter I set about the task on the previous Friday and planned out a basic application in a used case diagram and imagined what classes I would need to create. I had been given some notes on how to use list views so put them into practice making a very basic application.

I wanted to add more functionality and have the ability to save any tasks created in the app. I had been recommended a book called Android the Big Nerd Ranch, so after a quick look online it found its way into my Kindle.

On Monday I spent my time adding Java functionality getting to grips with fragments and adding to a basic app.

On Tuesday I added SQL lite made my data persistent and saved it to memory.

Wednesday I spent the day playing with the Android equivalent of CSS and messed about with how the App would look, changing colours, and fonts and adding a splash screen.

Thursday was a big presentation day where each Cohort had 15 minutes to demonstrate their project explain how they had coded it and discuss how they got on.

In the morning I was all set, App ready and presentation-ready and set off from Stirling on the 7:17 am train to Edinburgh… I was then massively let down by Scot-rail at Linlithgow where an announcement came over the tannoy to say because of a breakdown at Haymarket the train would terminate at Linlithgow and could we please kindly get off and busses would be provided in a couple of hours. Anyway long story short and in a John Candy-like movie script a knight in her Shiny Honda came to my rescue and had me on a tram into Edinburgh shortly after (Shout out to the Tiny Irish person... Thank You!)

The Presentations were brilliant again and it really is amazing to see how novice programmers can produce working apps and be able to talk all the jargon in just 8 weeks.

Well done guys, you are all stars each and every one of you. We may just have to start a Company called Cohort 7 and keep working together in February. That is unless we all go work for Ross-Tech. We shall see…

CODE CLAN WEEK 7 - JAVA + ANDROID = COOL APPS

So week seven we are being introduced to the world of Android... What? Being fully entangled in the Apple ecosystem with iPhone, iPad, iMac, and MacBook this was a bit of a shocker but needs must. Combining Java and Android Studio lets us write our own apps and have them installed and running on (our) Android mobile devices. A quick pitstop to Amazon has a cheap 7" (£34) Android tablet in the post. Thanks, NUS student card, and Amazon Prime.

The week starts on Monday with a standup and a review of the weekend homework. The exercise to create a card game in Java left a few broken people. This was a tough assignment and took a bunch of time at the weekend but I managed the majority of it and managed to get to the stage where I was able to simulate (with tests) the basic Pontoon functionality and compare two hands for the highest value.

The day's lesson moves us into Android Studio and into an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). To start off and keep things simple the IDE is used just for coding Java.

Initially, it's quite a change, but quickly the benefits become apparent: The IDE checks the code on the fly as you are typing and will underline anything formatted incorrectly with red and underline. It also, with the use of the TAB key suggests and auto-completes input text, which speeds up the typing.

Tuesday - had us building our first App as part of a Code along. A simple magic 8 Ball app where you could ask a question and it would give you a random answer. The Java code used Android libraries and we had it running on an Android phone emulator on our desktops. Brilliant to see the process of making a couple of simple screens and having Java code control them on a phone.

Wednesday - we were given a group lab where we were split into teams of 3 and tasked with making a Rock/Paper/Scissors app. The timescale was about 4 hours and as a team, we had to do the Java code and the Android front end to have a working app by the end of it. This was a real high and the 4 hours zipped past before we were ready to present to the class. Some premature high fives in the team had the first play show a draw, the second play another draw, and the third play also a draw... After some minor tweaking and debugging code we had it working in time for the presentation.

Thursday - gave us some more tools in the form of Menus and toasts (popups) that could be used in our apps and then some instructions on how the apps could be downloaded to real Android phones and Tablets.

In the afternoon we set our project task for the coming week. There was a choice of 6 briefs that we could choose from. These were a range of Java and Android app suggestions that we would need to plan, version control code test, and present on the following Thursday.

As this is social night the talk at the pub was on what each cohort was going to pick for their project.

Friday and it's crunch time and we had to announce at standup what choice we are making for our project.

So to sum up week 7. Probably the best and most enjoyable week yet. It's brilliant to be able to make an app from scratch and have it running on a phone or tablet (even though it's the wrong ecosystem... I'm hoping the skills are transferable and I can develop IOS apps too)

Top marks to Code Clan and our instructors. And to my fellow cohorts "GO TEAM!!!" how good are we? getting past week 7 and able to program phone apps!

(^^-- thanks to the unknown artist for the pics, I snapped them on the wall of a local bacon roll shop on Lady Lawson Street. Love the style and content)