Murach's Android Programming: outdated before it's published?

[Ewald Za Horn]

I see from the content that the book mainly uses Eclipse for Android development. Is that not a concern as Eclipse is not the future of Android development and Android Studio has been around for so long? As an Android developer, I've been using Android Studio for so long, I can't remember what Eclipse looks like. What would be the reason for sticking to Eclipse, as I think this could be confusing, especially to Android beginners?

Also, I'd like to know if the book addresses some of the changes introduced with Android 6, for example, how permissions have changed?

[Maneesh Godbole]

Ewald Za Horn wrote:...and Android Studio has been around for so long? What would be the reason for sticking to Eclipse, as I think this could be confusing, especially to Android beginners?

Obviously I cannot answer for the author, but

The first stable build was released in December 2014, starting from version 1.0.[6]

source

As a developer who is used to Eclipse, I personally prefer using the same tool. It is human tendency that a learning curve introduces inertia. So from existing Eclipse user's point of view, I just need to focus on learning Android concepts and not IDE concepts too.
But of course, for a beginner, it wouldn't matter.

[Ewald Za Horn]

That is interesting, as I've made the migration to Android Studio and have found it much more productive and less irritable than Eclipse. I was surprised to see the main focus of the book on Eclipse, that's all. It led to my question about Android 6 - there are many changes between the different platforms and I'm still curious to know if this book prepares developers for those changes. I have unfortunately spent money on quite a few books, only to be terribly disappointed at content that has been outdated for years.

I do agree that, as an existing Eclipse user, it woul be easier to learn Android alone that to have to learn Android Studio as well. The learning curve to start using Android Studio is very small in my experience, so the extra effort required is worth it for me.

[Maneesh Godbole]

Ewald Za Horn wrote:The learning curve to start using Android Studio is very small in my experience, so the extra effort required is worth it for me.

Which IDE did you use before Android Studio? Not just for Android, but general development.

I tried Android Studio and got frustrated and gave up. With me, I suspect it was more of a 'you cannot teach an old dog new tricks' scenario

[Ewald Za Horn]

Haha! I might be an older dog than you though...

I used Eclipse, NetBeans, Visual Studio, Vi, you name it. Perhaps that's the difference, in that I've been forced to learn new things all the time.

Android Studio, in beta phase, was quite irritating, but it's settled down quite nicely.

[Karthik Shiraly]

Ewald Za Horn wrote:I see from the content that the book mainly uses Eclipse for Android development.

The new 2nd edition (that's the edition being promoted on our forum right now) uses Android Studio everywhere. I'm guessing you saw the TOC of the older 1st edition.

[Ewald Za Horn]

Karthik Shiraly wrote:

Ewald Za Horn wrote:I see from the content that the book mainly uses Eclipse for Android development.

The new 2nd edition (that's the edition being promoted on our forum right now) uses Android Studio everywhere. I'm guessing you saw the TOC of the older 1st edition.

I see! I followed the link provided and got the old TOC then. My apologies, these forums are rather confusing at times.

[Joel Murach]

Sorry for the confusion. It looks like there was a bad link to the table of contents.

Anyhow, just to verify what you've already said, the first edition of this book used Eclipse as the IDE, and the second edition uses Android Studio. That's probably the most striking difference between the two editions.

Thanks!

[Ron McLeod]

Maneesh Godbole wrote:I tried Android Studio and got frustrated and gave up. With me, I suspect it was more of a 'you cannot teach an old dog new tricks' scenario

Similar with me. I gave Android Studio a try, used it for a while, but being so familiar/comfortable/productive with Eclipse, I went back as soon as I had some serious work to do.

[Ewald Za Horn]

Joel Murach wrote:Sorry for the confusion. It looks like there was a bad link to the table of contents.

Anyhow, just to verify what you've already said, the first edition of this book used Eclipse as the IDE, and the second edition uses Android Studio. That's probably the most striking difference between the two editions.

Thanks!

That is excellent news! So my real question was around Android 6.x development. So much has changed from previous versions, especially around permissions. Is there any coverage for Android 6.x in the book, or did it come out too late to be included?

[salvin francis]

Maneesh Godbole wrote:
As a developer who is used to Eclipse, I personally prefer using the same tool. It is human tendency that a learning curve introduces inertia. So from existing Eclipse user's point of view, I just need to focus on learning Android concepts and not IDE concepts too.
But of course, for a beginner, it wouldn't matter.

I too found android studio quite difficult to work with. I unknowingly use a million keyboard shortcuts that I find difficult to unlearn. I found myself repeatedly making the same mistakes of pressing a bunch of keys and wondering why its not happening Although, I found Android studio is quite fast actually.

[Ewald Za Horn]

salvin francis wrote:

Maneesh Godbole wrote:
As a developer who is used to Eclipse, I personally prefer using the same tool. It is human tendency that a learning curve introduces inertia. So from existing Eclipse user's point of view, I just need to focus on learning Android concepts and not IDE concepts too.
But of course, for a beginner, it wouldn't matter.

I too found android studio quite difficult to work with. I unknowingly use a million keyboard shortcuts that I find difficult to unlearn. I found myself repeatedly making the same mistakes of pressing a bunch of keys and wondering why its not happening Although, I found Android studio is quite fast actually.

For Android development, I now prefer Android Studio - it's very good and keeping out of my way and, unlike Eclipse, is fast and responsive. I still use Eclipse for Scala development, so I sometimes press the wrong shortcut as well, but in general, I've found that investing a little bit of time and patience has made me efficient in both IDE's.

[Joel Murach]

To answer Ewald's question, all of the apps presented in this book work fine using the permissions available prior to Android 6.x, so I didn't add any coverage of the permissions features that became available with Android 6.0. However, I plan to add coverage of these features to the next edition of this book.

[Ewald Za Horn]

Joel Murach wrote:To answer Ewald's question, all of the apps presented in this book work fine using the permissions available prior to Android 6.x, so I didn't add any coverage of the permissions features that became available with Android 6.0. However, I plan to add coverage of these features to the next edition of this book.

Thank you, if you target Android 6.0 (23) then these apps will fail - just watch out for that.

[Joel Murach]

OK. I will watch out for that. Thanks!

[Stephen M Davies]

I too found android studio quite difficult to work with. I unknowingly use a million keyboard shortcuts that I find difficult to unlearn. I found myself repeatedly making the same mistakes of pressing a bunch of keys and wondering why its not happening Although, I found Android studio is quite fast actually.

Since Android Studio is based in the IntelliJ Idea platform, you can use eclipse shortcuts and keybindings, they can be set in the preferences under keymap. There are presets for Eclipse, and several others. You can also export your shortcuts from Eclipse and import them to Android Studio.