Friday, 24 February 2012
Monday, 13 February 2012
You know that feeling...
...when you're putting something off until the end of the week, not because you're procrastinating, but because you have other things to do now and will have plenty of time at the end of the week to get whatever task done.
And then at the end of the week your hard drive crashes.
Well, I'm running a pair of 2GB drives in RAID1 now, and a 64GB SSD to run windows off of. Lost all my files though, it's going to be a long week and I'll be damned if this is ever going to happen to me again. I've had enough of hard drive failures.
Maybe I'll have a notepad app next week.
And then at the end of the week your hard drive crashes.
Well, I'm running a pair of 2GB drives in RAID1 now, and a 64GB SSD to run windows off of. Lost all my files though, it's going to be a long week and I'll be damned if this is ever going to happen to me again. I've had enough of hard drive failures.
Maybe I'll have a notepad app next week.
Monday, 6 February 2012
2 weeks...
That's about how long it has been since my last post. Between Chinese New Years (lion dancing) 2 weeks ago, and then catching up on homework assignments last week, I've had barely any time for this blog or any android development. I used this last weekend to recover: mentally, emotionally, physically; but now I am back on top of myself, and currently looking at the Android notepad tutorial.
I have to say, from first glances, this is a fair bit more complex than I expected, but about as complex as I should have expected. There's a lot of code, even for a notepad, but it's all basic things like setting up a database to save notes in, and working with the myriad options available to a user (select, open context menu, press back button, etc...)
I hope to crunch through the rest of the basic tutorials this week, and then next week start on writing a very basic application, probably using motion sensors to make an object bounce around the screen.
I have to say, from first glances, this is a fair bit more complex than I expected, but about as complex as I should have expected. There's a lot of code, even for a notepad, but it's all basic things like setting up a database to save notes in, and working with the myriad options available to a user (select, open context menu, press back button, etc...)
I hope to crunch through the rest of the basic tutorials this week, and then next week start on writing a very basic application, probably using motion sensors to make an object bounce around the screen.
Monday, 16 January 2012
Hello World
I've been slowly working through the android development tutorials, perhaps a bit more slowly than I'd like, not because I'm finding development difficult (on the contrary, it seems to flow quite well) but rather because of my life's constant supply of distractions.
Looking ahead through the tutorials, and at the one's I've already completed I'd say I'm quite impressed with the android toolkit. Perhaps simply because I haven't got to the point where the "Library Hell" I've heard talked about is of significance. The base functions of the toolkit and it's wonderful Eclipse plugin have put a smile on my face; too many times have I worked with toolkits and APIs where for every new file, asset, class or whatever you needed to write a massive boilerplate of references and constant variables, but it looks like I've been given this cute little R.java file that updates itself automatically when I just drag a file into the projects folder, vunderbar! And the XML for all the layout data seems actually readable and usable, maybe as my UIs get more complex it will turn into the mishmash of indecipherable tags that XML normally becomes, but for now I am in the early stages of blissful ignorance.
This post has probably been boring for anyone who has done android development before, but I felt happy. Just think of this as a notification that I'm not dead yet, all zero followers can feel content in this!
Looking ahead through the tutorials, and at the one's I've already completed I'd say I'm quite impressed with the android toolkit. Perhaps simply because I haven't got to the point where the "Library Hell" I've heard talked about is of significance. The base functions of the toolkit and it's wonderful Eclipse plugin have put a smile on my face; too many times have I worked with toolkits and APIs where for every new file, asset, class or whatever you needed to write a massive boilerplate of references and constant variables, but it looks like I've been given this cute little R.java file that updates itself automatically when I just drag a file into the projects folder, vunderbar! And the XML for all the layout data seems actually readable and usable, maybe as my UIs get more complex it will turn into the mishmash of indecipherable tags that XML normally becomes, but for now I am in the early stages of blissful ignorance.
This post has probably been boring for anyone who has done android development before, but I felt happy. Just think of this as a notification that I'm not dead yet, all zero followers can feel content in this!
Monday, 9 January 2012
And so it begins...
Hello and welcome!
The purpose of this blog is twofold: first off I needed a blog to submit for a course I am taking, but that reason is only an excuse; the second, and "real" reason for this blog is to motivate and organize me to get some development done. And so I will be using this blog to chronicle my adventures in learning to develop on an environment I currently know nothing at all about, the Android!
Why Android? Well, it is an interesting platform, the mobile market is booming and I don't own a mac to do iPhone development, or an iPhone for that matter, while I do own an android phone (albeit a fairly terrible one) and have recently purchased an awesome Android tablet (ASUS Transformer Prime, though it hasn't arrived yet). Most of all, however, I just want to work on something completely new that I have never done before. I've written games for the PC many times before, and have worked on Xbox games too, but never anything on the mobile platform. Oh, and on that note I should mention that I will be focusing on game development here; perhaps not at first, I may write something simple like a bouncing ball or an alarm clock to get started, but games are the end goal.
And, I suppose if you are reading this you are wondering about the odd choice of name for the blog. To make a long story short I asked a friend and went with the first thing they uttered, which was "Tenacity." Slightly absurd perhaps, but definitely a quality I will be needing to complete this undertaking; and even if ti is a bit silly, as Shakespeare said (or is that wrote?): What's in a name?
The purpose of this blog is twofold: first off I needed a blog to submit for a course I am taking, but that reason is only an excuse; the second, and "real" reason for this blog is to motivate and organize me to get some development done. And so I will be using this blog to chronicle my adventures in learning to develop on an environment I currently know nothing at all about, the Android!
Why Android? Well, it is an interesting platform, the mobile market is booming and I don't own a mac to do iPhone development, or an iPhone for that matter, while I do own an android phone (albeit a fairly terrible one) and have recently purchased an awesome Android tablet (ASUS Transformer Prime, though it hasn't arrived yet). Most of all, however, I just want to work on something completely new that I have never done before. I've written games for the PC many times before, and have worked on Xbox games too, but never anything on the mobile platform. Oh, and on that note I should mention that I will be focusing on game development here; perhaps not at first, I may write something simple like a bouncing ball or an alarm clock to get started, but games are the end goal.
And, I suppose if you are reading this you are wondering about the odd choice of name for the blog. To make a long story short I asked a friend and went with the first thing they uttered, which was "Tenacity." Slightly absurd perhaps, but definitely a quality I will be needing to complete this undertaking; and even if ti is a bit silly, as Shakespeare said (or is that wrote?): What's in a name?
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