On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 5:39 PM, Keith Bennett <[email protected]> wrote: > Kris - > > Thanks for your advice. I did start looking into Android development > a few months ago -- I was in the Philippines and got a tutor there to > give me a jumpstart, and then followed up with independent study. > > What I found, though, is that there were places where I would get > stuck, where an experienced developer might immediately know the > solution, and in the aggregate save me many hours of head-scratching. > Beginners seek solutions to questions, but often ask the wrong > questions. In other words, I might try to figure out how to do > something, while a developer with more experience would point out that > the approach itself is flawed, and there is a better way to do it. > I've been on the other end of this, helping beginners with Ruby, Java, > C++, C, etc. If you've ever seen a for loop written in Ruby code by a > newly trained Java developer who doesn't know or hasn't taken the > trouble to learn how to use Ruby enumerables, you'll know what I mean. > > It's one thing to scrape by and put something together that works, and > quite another to learn best practices from a master. > > There are books and screencasts, and discussion groups like this one > that are helpful in this regard. For a dramatic increase in expertise > and productivity, though, working closely with an expert is, in my > opinion, the most effective way. I'm not rich, so my best bet I think > is to work with someone for whom a rate that's affordable to me would > be attractive, and that probably means traveling overseas. > > I do have excellent skills in Java, OO, Linux, GUI development, so a > beginning class might not be the most effective route for me. I could > be a good pair programming partner, and maybe I'll start by just > offering to pair at no charge. Anyone feel free to get in touch with > me if you're interested in this. I'm open to travel. > > - Keith > >
I can understand that. At the same time, I wouldn't really have the cash to go abroad to program, especially since you'll be losing money on your opportunity cost of working during that time. Would it make sense to work with somebody over skype? There should be a set of open source projects aimed at beginning Android developers. Come to think of it, this isn't a bad idea, and I would be willing to investigate helping out with this goal. Especially since you can get some real stuff done, without much overhead. It might be sensible to have regular skype meetings with the group, just to do orientation sessions. I would love to lead this kind of thing, but I don't really have time since I'm in school for the next six years or so :-). However, I think that this is a unique problem: it makes sense for working developers to pay thousands of dollars to take classes, but hobbyists can't really be expected to shell out this kind of cash. (No offense to the numerous teachers on this list, Mark Murphy, for example, seems to have some great classes.) Few Android developers are making a living off of it, (though I'm sure somebody is..), and so there's not a way to recover this cost in an immediate sense. (Along with this, companies typically pay to have their employees attend these sorts of events.) I would say that if you are willing to find somebody to hold up shop with for a few months, that would be great, but I think that if you met with a group over skype or email for a sufficient amount of time daily, I don't see how it would impede you too much. Even if you take a college course, the majority of what you learn is experimenting with lecture materials outside of the classroom, students rarely get a huge chunk of enlightenment sitting through lectures over APIs (though it's not to say it can't up your learning curve's derivative...). I would be interested to hear your experiences, but my personal opinion is that Android just isn't that hard to learn if you stick to it for a while (I've personally gotten new students picking it up within a few months, and they were only ~2-3rd year CS students). However, I can also understand that it is helpful to pick up all the "pro tips" from somebody who knows their stuff (better than I do :-). Kris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
