Android development is hot, and many programmers are interested in joining the fun. However, because this technology is based on Java, you should first obtain a solid grasp of the Java language and its foundational APIs to improve your chances of succeeding as an Android app developer. After all, you will be busy learning the architecture of an Android app, the various Android-specific APIs, and Android-specific tools. If you do not already know Java fundamentals, you will probably end up with a massive headache from also having to quickly cram those fundamentals into your knowledge base.
Learn Java for Android Development teaches programmers of any skill level the essential Java language and foundational Java API skills that must be learned to improve the programmer's chances of succeeding as an Android app developer. Each of the book's ten chapters provides an exercise section that gives you the opportunity to reinforce your understanding of the chapter's material. Answers to the book's approximately 300+ exercises are provided in an appendix. Once you complete this book, you will be ready to dive into Android, and you can start that journey by obtaining a copy of Beginning Android 2.
Additionally, author Jeff Friesen will provide supplementary material on his javajeff.mb.ca website, available when this book is released.
What you'll learn
- The Java language: This book provides complete coverage of every pre-Java version 7 language feature. Starting with those features related to classes and objects, you progress to object-oriented features related to inheritance, polymorphism, and interfaces. You then explore the advanced language features for nested types, packages, static imports, exceptions, assertions, annotations, generics, and enums. Continuing, you investigate strictfp, class literals, synchronized, volatile, the enhanced for loop statement, autoboxing/unboxing, transient fields, and native methods. The book also briefly presents most (if not all) of Java version 7's language features, although not much is said about closures or modules (which were not finalized at the time of writing).
- Java APIs: In addition to Object and APIs related to exceptions, you explore Math, StrictMath, BigDecimal, BigInteger, Package, Boolean, Character, Byte, Short, Integer, Long, Float, Double, Number, the References API, the Reflection API, System, String, StringBuffer, the Threading API, the collections framework, the concurrency utilities, the Internationalization APIs, the Preferences API, Random, the Regular Expressions API, Timer and TimerTask, the ZIP and JAR File APIs, RandomAccessFile, classic I/O (in terms of streams, RandomAccessFile, and File), and modern I/O (in terms of buffers, channels, and Java version 7's Paths and Path classes). You will also get a taste of Swing.
- Tools: You will learn how to use the JDK's javac (compiler), java (application launcher), javadoc (Java documentation generator), and jar (Java archive creator, updater, and extractor) tools. You will also receive an introduction to the NetBeans and Eclipse integrated development environments. Although you can develop Android apps without NetBeans or Eclipse, working with these IDEs is much more pleasant.
Who this book is for
This book is for any programmer (including existing Java programmers and Objective-C (iPhone/iPad) programmers) of any skill level who needs to obtain a solid understanding of the Java language and foundational Java APIs before jumping into Android app development.
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