[Noisebridge-discuss] Reply if interested; I'm considering offering a weekly Beginners Android Development class

[Brian Cloutier]

Looks like there is more than enough interest, this is happening!

We've got a full holiday season ahead of us and I'd like to take some
time to prepare, so the class will start sometime mid-January. I'll
send out a doodle after new years to see which times work for
everybody.

> I should ask. What basics do we need before we start?

I'll throw a 0th class before we get into the thick of things to help
people get set up, but you're going to need:
- Java, http://java.com/getjava
- Eclipse, the Android SDK, and the Android Developer Tools for
Eclipse. All of which can be found here with installation instructions
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
- An Android phone running 2.3 or newer (almost all of them). There's
an emulator you can use, but I highly recommend having an android
phone for testing your apps on.

> Let me know if you'd like to use Noisegate as a case study.  It makes an HTTP request inside an AsyncTask.

Sounds great, thank you.

For the people who don't already know Java, it's been a while since I
learned so I don't know what the best references are but these might
be helpful:
- If you feel like reading a book, Head First Java is excellent
http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Java-Kathy-Sierra/dp/0596009208
- Oracle maintains the official Java tutorial:
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/index.html
- They've also got a tutorial on Collections, which are going to be
important: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/collections/index.html
- And here's a website with a couple drills for practicing:
http://codingbat.com/java

If you want to get a head start, I cannot recommend the official
android documentation enough.
http://developer.android.com/training/index.html is a good place to
get started.

- Brian