Ok so it has been a week.

No I haven't given up on my quest to learn how to program Java and inevitably learn to program for the android devices out there. What has happened though was a bunch of stuff in the real world like job interviews and everything, but more importantly i picked up a new Java programming book. This book is far more friendly to new developers than the previous, it has examples that compile, and it teaches you the basic. Why I went this route was to be able to learn the basics with one book and then learn the advanced style and information once done with that or even during the reading of the new book.

I almost hate myself for saying this, but I decided to give Java  For Dummies, 4th Edition. I've often thought myself better than these books but to be honest it doesn't hurt to knock myself down a peg to learn something new or different and as such here I am reading this book.

So yeah, here I am with a new book in hand and still I read both the other books to learn things. The other Java book is still quite resourceful and I've read through all of chapter 4 and parts of chapter 5 so its still being used but only for informational purposes rather than educational.

Apology is necessary

Ok, so I did intend to continue my endeavor into Java and Android more thoroughly this week but with Ubuntu 10.10 beta being released yesterday I've spent most of my afternoon, night, and even this morning trying to get it set up on my netbook and it has proved to be more than I'd like to handle. Not because it's a bad product but rather because the wireless configuration in my netbook isn't a properly supported device.

Only a minor setback, hopefully this weekend and next week will prove more fruitful!

And so it begins again.

So there I was, broken and defeated by a rather disapointing chapter of what I thought would be my tutorial into a life of programming. I sat there pondering my path forward, then there was a glimmer of light at the end of an otherwise dreary tunnel. Walking forward I get closer to the light.

On the other side of the tunnel there was nothing to come out of my mouth other than one thing I had on my mind. What came out of my mouth was nothing but mind blowing to myself. This is what came out:

Now I know, this isn't a huge step forward, but it is a step in the right direction I feel. Not the most complex app out there but it was deployed to my Droid and it works perfectly fine which made me happy. This new book is quite a bit more trying than the previous book, it assumes you know a lot about Java (which as you might recall from my last post, I only know basics).  If its a struggle I have to face, then I shall.

Heres to hoping more apps will be pushed from my keyboard into my Droid and onto other users in this world.

Well that was quick.

So, to be fair, the book is a great book. To be even more fair, the book was a great book. Long story short, chapter three and beyond hold no real examples of code that you can compile. Why do I not like this style of learning? Well for one, its hard for me to figure out how things work without being taught an example and then how to use it in an actual program. All the book decides to teach you is little snippets of code and how to make use of certain classes, but not necessarily how to make use of certain classes in programs. I know this isn't a major problem and I will still continue to read the book however from now until I get bored of it I will be reading Pro Android 2 to learn how to program on my Android device.

If you fear for my sake of learning that I will never truly learn the art of Java programming, fear not! This is only a minor turn on the path of success that I feel is necessary, I'm still going to finish reading the book I started with but in stead of using it as a learning mechanism I will be using it as a reference to how to do certain things.

Unfortunately, with this discovery of lack of usable code, I will also unfortunately not be providing any examples of coding that it had me produce since they are all a variation on "Hello World" there wouldn't be much sense to it. I would have to heavily modify what little i had done to not infringe on the authors efforts on that chapter alone. So for that, I must say i'm sorry and I do hope to have something up for examples throughout my learning of Android and Java in general.

My apologies to all.