Richard Farley said
As other reviewers have stated, the book takes 100 pages to get into the basic "Hello, Android" application. After that, the first example cannot even be compiled. They mention in the preface the McGraw-Hill site where the source code is listed, but it is not kept up to date. It is also suggested to email the author for errors/changes such as this which is essentially a black hole.
Any information which is correct in the book was basically downloaded from the already available online material.
I would definitely not recommend this..
Simmone Mago said
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.
Gregory Williams said
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 The content is out-of-date.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.
L. QIN said
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.
H. Wu said
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!
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