Customer Reviews

ANDROID A PROGRAMMERS GUIDE

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I had fairly low expectations from this book as the API is still in a state of flux, so if some of the examples needed tweaking that would have been alright. However, I could not even find any example code on the book's website as advertised on the back cover. This is a 400 page book so I expected to get at least some useful material from it, but the author does not even get past Hello World until over 100 pages. The material after that consists of repetitions of trivial code additions followed by regurgitation of the source. It would appear that the author was just trying to increase the page count with no real valuable content. There is no in-depth discussion of what Activities, Intents, etc. actually are or how they work. After this poor experience I went back to the online help and am finding it vastly more thorough and helpful. I would not recommend this book for any level of developer.

The author does not even understand Java programming conventions. He used capitalized camel case for method name. But some other methods are using the correct camel case. It's mixed throughout his codes. Also, android_programmers_guide.chapter is his package name. Oh my, coming from an ASP/VB programmer's background certainly hurts here.

Aside from that, the book is shallow, not much interesting stuff. The Google official samples are much better and cleaner!

Stay away at all possible cost!

Just received this book. I went over the first seven chapters and am very disappointed. The first seven chapters are nothing more than existing online material with some added textual embellishments. There are also a few chapters with sample code (some of which are from the Google samples) and a few might be original code. This is not recommended.

This book is horrible. Do NOT buy this book!! I would have given it 0 stars if I could.

Here's why:
1. There are so many glaring typos and misprints that the exercises are difficult to follow and almost worthless.

2. The content is out-of-date. If you're developing with 1.0 or newer, you'll spend more time trying to figure out how to do the exercises with the current API instead of being able to follow the examples.

3. The author does not use Java coding standards. His classes start with lower case letters and he uses capitals and underlines in his package names. He's obviously not a Java developer and therefore you shouldn't be learning Java from him.

Do yourself a favor, save some money and skip this book and just use the tutorial and examples that come with the API.

The author actually didn't know either Java or Android development. The books is emphasizing many basic Java concept, for example, what is a inner class, what is an interface etc. However, for those real android development, he always says "the sample code is fairly self-explained" etc, so missing the real concept for Android / Java development.

I will avoid this author and his other books in the future. I think at least before writing the books, the author should be familiar with the target and know what's the real topics should be written.

I was very disappointed by this book. I will admit that the SDK is still being worked on and they just released version 1.0, which is upposed to be locked, a few of the examples won't work and have to be updated.

In addition I found an error around the 8th chapter where the wrong class names are used and would mess up the example.

The biggest problem is what seems to be useless pages with overly simple examples. Chapter 8 is horrible with a simple application and just pasting a bunch of different versions for the same thing. There are plenty of things that aren't needed to be explained, but are anyway ... even though the book states it is to be used by someone with previous programming experience.

Way too simplistic and wordy for anyone who already knows Java.

As a relatively new comer to Java, I found this book very simple to understand, since is a technology completely new to me.
The approach to the subjects was very straight forward, and there were explained in a way similar to the one I would use to explain it when teaching classes.
I consider it a good first try!.
Unfortunately: Is not up to date, sometimes Java conventions are not correctly used, and after very simple examples in chapters 1 through 7, chapter 8 is extremely complicated.

Even so, I am very thankful, because I have a better understanding of Android technology. For me it was a guideline, in contrast with the sole sdk documentation.

I would look forward for a second, updated and reviewed edition.
Only then, I would recommend it to any new Java/Android Programmer.

I was forced to buy this book for an Android course at UCSD Extension.

I could go on and on agreeing with the other reviews -- but the most important issue is: This book is riddled with typographical errors in the code that make following the examples (especially in chapter 8) nearly impossible. A huge time waster.

My suggestion: Just read the Android SDK Documentation -- and avoid this book at all costs.

Also: The following individuals should be fired from McGraw Hill for not doing their jobs:

Technical Editor: Gilbert L. Polo

Copy Editor: Bill McManus

Proofreader: Francesca Ferrir

Good luck to all of you named above finding a new position selling Tacos at Taco Bell in a hairnet. You owe me 10 hours of my life back for not being able to get through Chapter 8's code examples. Stupid F-wits.

-- Paul (San Diego, CA)

I had high hopes for this book, but reached only around page 50 before becoming completely lost. Even instructions for setting up Elipse and the Android SDK are completely out of date, and I ended up venturing online for more detailed information. Once I got online, I found everything to be clearer than the contents of the book, which glazed over some massive areas vital to getting started with Android. The Android development environment is still in a state of flux, so I suspect it will be more valuable to use online resources than books until it starts to stabilize. Even so, there are many errors throughout the book - the back page refers to a URL for code downloads that leads to an error "Unknown column '112downloads' in 'where clause'".

The book is well written. Contrary to what others are saying about the software examples, the English language and writing style for the book is well above the norm. The book was written before the first release of Android was out of beta. So hats off to Jerome for helping the rest of us get up to speed faster than otherwise possible.

For technical aspects I liked the way Jerome introduced us to the basic programming model behind Android:

1) Use Eclipse IDE and Command Line tools for host development, target phone deployment
2) AndroidManifest.xml, main.xml, <activity>.java, R.java files, and project directories for various resources
3) Intents, Permissions, Lists, Menus, and Other Views
4) Use of a phone or emulator's GPS environment
6) Use of SQL database and services in general

I think the book is a little outdated at this point, but it is still the best choice I have seen so far as a quick introduction to developing apps on Android. That being said, this book is not very good without a follow-up read of the Android Developer Docs.

Best regards,

Ron Fredericks
Engineering and Business Filmmaker
LectureMaker, LLC