How to get started to create a backend for Android apps

[Emanuele Mazzante]

Hello everyone,
I've been following an online course on Android for about a year and I'd like to know how to get started to create a backend for my apps.
I would like to learn how to create my own APIs that allow my Apps to perform server-side CRUD operations along with other logic to be implemented in the backend.

My only server-side programming experience was gained through the book Murach's Java servlets and JSP but I think this does not help me for what I would like to do.

Searching on the net, I see recommended PHP as well as Node.js or Google Cloud Engine to create a backend for Android app. Would anyone kindly spell out a few words to tell me how and where to start? I would be happy to receive a suggestion regarding a good manual to buy.

Thank you all for your attention

[Norm Radder]

Can you define what you mean by "backend"?  What does the code do?  Where does it execute? Who would use it?

[Tim Moores]

For my apps I use JAX-RS web services running on Tomcat. Eventually it may be necessary to use a dedicated server I have for myself, but for the time being, a private Tomcat instance on a shared server works nicely.

[Emanuele Mazzante]

Norm Radder wrote:Can you define what you mean by "backend"?  What does the code do?  Where does it execute? Who would use it?

Thank you for your interest and sorry if I have not been too clear.

My idea of ​​backend is the following. When I think of an App to be implemented, I think of the features that allow me to save data in a cloud database so you can share it among different users of my app. Access to data would be through APIs that I would like to implement by myself.

Therefore I would like to allow users of my app to access this data, clearly after authentication. I'd also like to send notifications. For example, if a user sends a specific request or data to the server, the server in turn should be able to send a notification to the users interested in that specific type of data.

Perhaps the features listed so far are provided for example by Firebase (but I do not know it enough to say). However, a further use case would be to implement a logic in the server. For example, after a request has been submitted, the server should retrieve data from the database, perform processing, and return the result to one or more users.

I hope I have been clear enough. Thank you again

[Emanuele Mazzante]

Tim Moores wrote:For my apps I use JAX-RS web services running on Tomcat. Eventually it may be necessary to use a dedicated server I have for myself, but for the time being, a private Tomcat instance on a shared server works nicely.

Thank you for your interest. Do you think JAX-RS can do for me? I had tried to look for some manual that started from the basics but I did not find much. Could you suggest me something to start with that is valid (video course, manual or other)?

Thanks again

[Norm Radder]

Thank you for that clarification.  I've written several Android apps and have never needed a "backend" (other than GoogleMaps) so I wasn't sure what you were asking about.

[Tim Moores]

I think JAX-RS can do everything you mention, the exception being notifications, for which you'll need Firebase.

I've never liked video tutorials for programming, so can't help with that. The JAX-RS we site has everything you need to get started, including code for simple and complex examples, and a user guide about everything.

[Emanuele Mazzante]

Thanks for your help. I will look for some material on JAX-RS.

[Richard Hayward]

Emanuele Mazzante wrote:Could you suggest me something to start with that is valid (video course, manual or other)?

There's a youtube playlist from javabrains Developing RESTful APIs with JAX-RS that I really liked:

https://www.youtube.com/user/koushks

I linked to this in a previous thread here, so apologies if you've already seen it.

[Emanuele Mazzante]

Richard Hayward wrote:

There's a youtube playlist from javabrains Developing RESTful APIs with JAX-RS that I really liked:

https://www.youtube.com/user/koushks

I linked to this in a previous thread here, so apologies if you've already seen it.

Thank you Richard you are very kind, I did not see it. Very helpful.

[James Woakes]

As per my experience in 5 years of android app development, PHP-MySQL is the best option to make android backend.

There are tons of tutorials and resources available, so learning to make web services with PHP will not be very complex task as you already have programming experience.

PHP will work best for JSON related data exchanges also.

Here is a quick guide to make register and login example with android app and php

They have provide both source codes for android (java) and web service (php).

If you are very beginner for PHP, it is suggested that you capture little knowledge about basic php and it's workflow. Then after you are good to go.

Thanks.

[Emanuele Mazzante]

Thank you for your interest and help.

May I ask why you consider the PHP-MYSQL option better than JAX-RS?

I do not know either of them so I would like to understand the reasons for this choice.

In your experience, could the learning curve of this option be steeper than learning JAX-RS?

Thanks again for the help.