Blog Posts

Imagine: How Creativity Works

11/28/2014

This is not a programming book or related to the Android platform in any way -- it's a book about creativity. And as such, I've enjoyed reading it very much from the perspective of a programmer. After all, programming, which is a creative enterprise, has the same joys and frustrations as painting, drawing, and inventing new products.

Several times I had to put the book down, inspired, to return to my computer to write some more code. While the book may fall short in scientific rigor describing some of the studies the author shares, the anecdotes and quotes were inspiring enough to get me actively thinking about the creative process in general and how it relates to programming in particular.

The author quotes Beethoven, saying, "I make many changes and reject and try again, until I am satisfied." Not unlike Beethoven, and many other artists, I program, I code, I make artwork for my app, I select sound effects, I reject some ideas, I rewrite code, and I keep trying again until I am satisfied. The author asserts that creation... creativity... is a universal ability of all humans and I fully believe that. It's just that the expression of creativity is different for everyone.

Code Complete 2: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction

9/9/2014

This book is wonderful. Highly recommended for anyone who writes code -- newbies or experienced developers. I wish I had this book when I first started programming more than 30 years ago -- and I wish I had read this book every 10 years since then. This is a book that will continue to pay benefits for as long as I sling code.

This book contains lots of great information, tips, and tricks on how to write better code that is more maintainable, more readable, and more awesome.

Go read the reviews on Amazon and then order this book. Reading this book and following just some of it's recommendations will make you better at developing code. Your future self will thank the you of today.

Game Frame: Using Games as a Strategy for Success

7/2/2014

I picked up this short book at the library as my beach reading while on vacation and it fit the bill perfectly. Short chapters, entertaining, with lots of examples.

This book contains a nice list of building blocks of games, but unfortunately it doesn't list them anywhere. It would have been nice to have a checklist to follow instead of having to page through Level Nine (chapters are called levels). Examples of building blocks from Level Nine include: targets, competition, chance, time pressure, scarcity, puzzles, novelty, levels, currency, progress, forced decision, points, and more.

I picked up some useful ideas and reinforced some earlier thoughts I already had about games, apps, and life. Overall, worth a quick read and I will return to it later to see if I can pick up more ideas. I find that I pick up different ideas from a book depending on when I read it -- some books were great when I was a teenager, but now would bore me -- and visa-versa too!

In app design and programming the basic books were interesting at first, but now I don't need those any more. I'm looking for both more detail and more high level discussion of concepts and ideas.

Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences

6/13/2014

Excellent book! Note that there isn't any code in this book -- it's entirely stories and experiences. I found the book inspirational and full of great ideas. The author encourages the reader to be intentional about the reasons and methods they use in designing, writing and testing games. Developing games, computer or otherwise, is a very difficult endeavor and is still in its infancy as a skill and art form.

Despite an internal complaint of, "Oh, no, more work to do!" I felt creatively challenged after reading this book. Anything worth doing is worth doing well -- a lesson I have to re-learn sometimes when I want to cut corners to speed up the process. I will release no app before its time!

The chapters at the end of book on managing a team of creatively technical people rang completely true with my experience. If only IT managers and supervisors would read it!

Beginning Android Games, 2nd ed.

3/18/2014

I enjoyed reading this book and was able to create several Apps using the game framework provided by the author. By reading the book and studying the code in the framework I learned quite a bit about coding this type of App. As a bonus this book has the best functional explanation of the Activity Life Cycle I've read anywhere (pp 126-129). The author also provides a good explanation of multi-click event checking and other input-related topics. Examining a working game framework, which is downloadable from author's website, has been very educational in seeing how it could be done.

Apparently the framework in this book is is a simplified version of the libgdx game framework so if you like the content of the book, check out libgdx. Even if you don't decide to develop libgdx, it is worth getting to know the framework for general knowledge and future understanding of other frameworks. No knowledge goes to waste if it can be used.

Note that the game framework uses Activities and Assets exclusively and not Fragments and Resources. If that doesn't mean anything to you, go read a beginner book on Android programming before tackling this one.

This is an intermediate to advanced level book, not for beginners.

Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

3/17/2014

This book is a good introduction to Android Programming, covering both Activities and Fragments. It's easy to read and each chapter builds upon the last. It's possible to read this book and not write a line of original code, but even so, you'd still learn a lot. As is true with most programming books, this book can be used as a springboard for other projects.

This is a beginner to intermediate level book.

Professional Android 4 Application Development

3/16/2014

This book seems to be a fairly comprehensive overview of Android programming. It's a good resource for learning how to code specific functions. Besides the mandatory first beginner chapters, this is a reference book. Dive in and start reading on the topics that interest you. I like the author's writing style and the examples are easy to follow, but be aware that books of this type are not meant to provide full solutions to specific problems. But this book will educate you and point you in the right direction with some examples. I look forward to using this book more as I get deeper into various Android topics.

This is an intermediate-advanced book.

Android Interface Design

3/15/2014

The first few chapters of this book explained the Android UI philosophy very well and were very informative, but the the rest of the book didn't live up the first part. Nevertheless, the information in the first part of the book was invaluable in understanding the fundamental differences between how the Android interface differs from the iPhone/iPad interface and why developers should not combine or confuse the two.

Preliminary Reading

3/12/2014

Here are books I read to get me over the Beginner's hump:

Android Application Development for Dummies
Borrowed this from the library.
This was a good place to start to get all the pieces together to begin Android development using Eclipse. This book gave me an easy-to-understand foundation to start from.

Android Game Programming for Dummies
Borrowed this from the library.
This was also read to get past the beginner stage. It was a quick read and I picked up more background information.

Programming Android by O’Reilly
Provides an in-depth look at specific topics in Android Programming. Provides a more stable and robust foundation than the two books noted above. Has the feel of authority which I like as a beginner Android developer. Some of the information went over my head, but I didn't worry about it. I'll come back to those chapters when I'm ready to absorb the information.

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