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I'm a beginner in programming. My experience so far is only in Actionscript 2 and 3. So I have a basic understanding of declaring variables, loops, arrays, if/then, do/while... I'm wanting to move to developing for Android phones so I'm wondering what suggestions people have for where to go next. Should I jump right to Android? Start with a 'beginning Java' approach? Or should I go some other route to beef up my knowledge of OOP concepts before launching into Android? I have my Dev environment set up and completed the Hello Android tutorial and I'm just wondering if I am going to be in over my head quickly?
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Java is the standard way of writing Android apps, but it's not strictly necessary. For example, there's also Xamarin. Android which lets you write Android apps in C# - although it will still fire up a Dalvik VM behind the scenes, as the Android "native" controls are in Java. Using Java is probably the simplest option.
Learn Java or Kotlin. To develop an android app you have to write code in Java or Kotlin. You have to learn any of these languages to communicate with android studio and make an app. Without Java or Kotlin, it's not possible to make an android app.
There are two scenarios I would recommend learning Java first for Android app development as a beginner. And remember nothing stops you from learning both languages for Android app development at a later stage, which I recommend you do once you have the time.
Python is always recommended if you're looking for an easy and even fun programming language to learn first. Rather than having to jump into strict syntax rules, Python reads like English and is simple to understand for someone who's new to programming.
I'm just wondering if I am going to be in over my head quickly?
Almost without a doubt. ^_^
My suggestion: Buy two books from Amazon.com
This is very similar to what I did years ago to learn Obj-C and Mac development and it worked well. It will take you longer to get up to speed than diving into development and hacking something together, but at the end of the day you'll have a much better understanding of the principals and intricacies of writing code for the Android platform.
I should also mention my reasoning behind suggesting you buy books instead of using free Google results. Books are structured and highly edited. Assuming the author(s) are competent, a decent book will teach you what you need to know and leave out details that are either unimportant or more advanced that what you strictly need. It's difficult to impossible to find that level of structure in an online tutorial.
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definitely nail down java syntax, so as little as possible confuses you in android development. android has some interesting objects to say the least--and their names don't hold traditional data structure names that you would be used to seeing. so, again, master the syntax, write some apps, then think about diving into android.
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