Hey so, I don't have any Android experience yet, b...

# getting-started

[sk0g]

Hey so, I don't have any Android experience yet, but I have done an intro to programming in Java and am currently in second year of Software Engineering.
How hard would it be to get into making Android apps without much, if any, Java?

[dalexander]

sk0g: It should be relatively easy. Google’s documentation is pretty good and their emulators are decent even if you don’t have a physical device to test on. If you download Android Studio (or use the IDEA android plugin) it’s pretty straightforward to create a simple blank app that you can deploy.

[sk0g]

There's this book called Kotlin for Android Developers, would I be better off following that, or a Java-Android book and doing mental/ IntelliJ translations of code and examples?

[sk0g]

I've loved what I've seen of Kotlin so far. I'm just scared of how much typing Java can involve at times. I've also gotten used to Python a bit, so Java seems very... archaic now.

[dalexander]

I don’t have a particular recommendation for a book, but I suspect Kotlin for Android Developers would be easier because then you wouldn’t have to make the Java translations, if you don’t have a lot of Java experience. Personally I’d give it a try without buying a book. Don’t worry too much about typing in Java, although you won’t need to because of Kotlin. In Java things are a little bit verbose but you probably spend most of your time thinking rather than typing when programming anyway 🙂

[sk0g]

True true, good IDEs mean you write much less Java, and can just type acronyms up, etc.
I had a group assignment in Java which deeply scarred me, so even reading/ figuring out code blocks can be super painful!

Thanks for your repsonses 🙂 I will just go with Kotlin then, very excited to get started on this journey! There's a lot of resources out there, and what could be better for motivation than a live app running on my phone.

[dalexander]

Hope you have a good time! If you have any questions related to both Kotlin and Android there is an #android channel if you haven’t found it already. The most common issues I see in the channel tend to be related to annotation processing, which is probably not something you’ll run into if you’re just getting started.

[sk0g]

Yeah I found it, feels good to have an official place to ask questions at. Also one that's not StackOverflow. I might ask a stupid quesiton, but it won't be indexed for all of eternity, and bring shame upon my grandchildren 😅

I'll read up more on annotation processing, so I at least know what to look up if I get stuck on it. Nothing sucks more than being stuck on something you can't even name/ describe.