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 programmers chances of succeeding as an Android app developer. Each of the books 10 chapters provides an exercise section that gives you the opportunity to reinforce your understanding of the chapters material. Answers to the books more than 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 (such as 6 more chapters) on his javajeff.mb.ca website, available over the next few months following this book's release.

What youll learn

• The Java language: This book provides complete coverage of nearly every pre-Java version 7 language feature (native methods are briefly mentioned but not formally covered). 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, and transient fields. The book also briefly presents most (if not all) of Java version 7s 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, String, StringBuffer, System, the Threading API, the collections framework, the concurrency utilities, the internationalization APIs, the Preferences API, Random, the Regular Expressions API, File, RandomAccessFile, stream classes, and writer/reader classes. You will also get a tiny taste of Swing in the context of internationalization.
• Tools: You will learn how to use the JDKs 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.

Table of Contents

1. Getting Started with Java
2. Learning Language Fundamentals
3. Learning Object-Oriented Language Features
4. Mastering Advanced Language Features Part 1
5. Mastering Advanced Language Features Part 2
6. Exploring the Basic APIs Part 1
7. Exploring the Basic APIs Part 2
8. Discovering the Collections Framework
9. Discovering Additional Utility APIs
10. Performing I/O
11. Solutions to Exercises

Customer Reviews & Comments
Although classified as a beginner's book, it should be noted that this book is not written for beginning programmers. If you are new to programming in general, start somewhere else and look at this book later. This comprehensive review of the Java language features takes the reader from the primitive data types to a whirlwind exposure to the standard Java libraries. The good: Learn Java for Android Development attempts to cover everything you might need to know about Java for purposes of Android development. Unlike many learning Java books, this book does not include information about Swing or Graphical programming. This is a big plus as those features of the language can be confusing for developers new to Java. Considering the book is aimed at Android developers, who won't be using Swing, it makes perfect sense. While reading the book, I learned several new things about features coming in the release of JDK7. I even learned a few things about JDK5/6 that I can do better in my day to day development. The book can serve as a quick reference for certain features of the language. The author recognized that several important topics needed to be covered (XML parsing for example), but couldn't be due to the size of the book. He has stated that he will make some new chapters available for free on his website. The bad: The book attempts to tackle everything, and I do mean everything. Because of this, the book is very dense with material and at times difficult to read. In many cases, example code was way too long and descriptions were way too short. Although the title includes the word "Learning", I would not recommend this as a book for someone who wants to learn the Java language. It is obvious the author knows Java extremely well, however, I don't feel he does a good job of conveying that knowledge in a manner that flows. In many cases, I was overwhelmed by the examples given and felt confused by the sudden switch of topics. While the book states that you are learning Java for the Android platform, very few references are actually made to Android. Overall: Overall, the book is OK. It can definitely serve as a reference for language features and would possibly be a useful book to own of you are an experience developer who is new to Java, but familiar with OO programming with another C type language (C++, C#, etc). Would I recommend this book to someone new to Java, who is not an advanced developer? No. Would I recommend this book to an experienced developer who is new to Java? Maybe. If you are the type of reader who appreciates short and to the point descriptions with an example to make it stick, you may enjoy this book. If you need a little more explanation for why something is being done or how it relates to other aspects of the language, this isn't the book for you. My rating: 3 stars. It is an OK book, but the reader needs to be aware of the intended audience before purchasing the book. I think the title can be a little misleading with that regards.

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