What has changed between this and the second edition?

[Marc Laffan]

I ask because I have a copy of the second edition, but have not read it yet. I went through Head First Android Development and learned a lot, but was under the impression that the Nerd Ranch Guide was a bit more advanced than HFA. So  I gathered that I should read HFA first then continue onto the Nerd Ranch Guide book.

I don't have any plans to read the Nerd Ranch Guide book anytime soon (I've got four more books queued up already), but will eventually get around to it.

So to get to my point, are the changes sufficient that I should just get the third edition of your book or does the second edition cover enough for me to get the majority of value out of it?

Thanks!

-Marc

[Chris Stewart-]

When we released the 3rd edition, I wrote up a blog post about what changed: https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/whats-new-in-android-programming-the-big-nerd-ranch-guide/

For some people, the 2nd edition will work well. Others may want some of the recent changes. There are two groups of people who I would recommend upgrading from the 2nd to 3rd edition:
A) Beginners who are cautious about learning a new platform and want the experience to be as smooth as possible. Many of the changes in the 3rd edition make the book easier to work through. We teach our Android Bootcamp class based off of the book so we've seen many, many people work through the chapters. We see where people get stuck. What things come naturally and what things do not. The 3rd edition adds a lot of polish to these kinds of areas of the book.
B) More advanced developers. We've added some new patterns in Android development to the 3rd edition. For example, we talk about the MVVM architectural pattern and data binding (along with unit testing). We also talk about ConstraintLayout.

I think the 2nd edition is a great starting point and will get you up to speed with Android. If you fall into one of the two buckets above, I would recommend the 3rd edition. I hope that helps!