Some Android Learning Resources
This May Day holiday was destined to be about Android. Despite my son constantly bothering me and needing to take him downstairs to play, I spent most of the time learning Android development and became fascinated by it. I set up Android development environments on all three of my laptops (two of which are学院固定资产). Both the Windows SDK and Mac SDK are installed.
Initially I thought Android was just Linux + Java VM + Java apps, the same architecture as Blackberry. Nothing special, maybe just relying on the “GPhone” label and Google’s brand to attract people. But after these few days of study, I found Android’s software architecture is not that simple at all. It breaks many traditional framework constraints and is truly captivating. For example, it brings web mashup concepts into app development, breaking strict boundaries between processes and tasks. But having only touched it for a few days, my understanding is still shallow, so I won’t elaborate.
The damned GFW has blocked Android’s developer site. Every time I open http://developer.android.com, it’s blank. I’ve had to tunnel through proxies several times these past few days. Today, I had the same experience as little Zhang Shufan:
One day I was browsing the web when a page popped up, very explicit and violent. I quickly added it to my bookmarks. The website I bookmarked was: http://androidappdocs.appspot.com/index.html. Obviously someone used Google App Engine to create it. It has complete Android documentation images and downloadable SDK. No more tunneling needed. Not bad.
I was planning to write an article about Intent. I’d read several Chinese articles and books, all very confusing. Then I read the English introduction and suddenly everything was clear. Yet another tragedy of Chinese technical literature: you can understand English perfectly, but the Chinese translation makes no sense. Then I stumbled across someone’s article:
Intent Analysis: http://zhubin215130.javaeye.com/blog/614913
Vivid explanation, wonderfully written.
Incidentally, it seems no Chinese expert has yet translated “Intent” into Chinese. What a shame. Such a powerful, profound, pretentious concept needs a suitably obscure Chinese translation. Look at the failures: “menu” translated as “菜单” (everyone understands it, terrible translation). You have to admire the people who translated “socket” as “套接字,” “handle” as “句柄,” “process” as “进程,” and “www” as “万维网.” They didn’t go with literal translations like “插座” or “把手.” These terms sound so academic that ordinary people can’t understand them without dedicated study. After all that study, you discover that handle really is just a “handle” and socket is like an “socket.” You’ve been fooled. How could Intent not have a Chinese translation yet? Scholars, here’s your chance for fame! If no one translates it, I’ll do it myself: “控机,” “念绪,” “因腾器.” How about that? Academic enough, right? Copyright reserved. If I find any publication, especially textbooks, using these terms, I’ll charge royalties!
Later I found a series of articles with excellent explanations, humorous, easy to understand, and close to everyday internet life. The first in the series can be read like a novel:
In-depth Android Series: http://www.cnblogs.com/duguguiyu/
I’ve always believed technical articles shouldn’t be too serious, especially online. If they’re as dry as classroom lectures, nobody will read them. Even university classes shouldn’t be overly rigid. The Western approach is better. After reading the series above, without fully understanding everything, I unhesitatingly threw my copy of “Android XX Revealed” into the trash.