Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

by Brian Hardy, Bill Phillips

Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide: is an introductory Android book for programmers with Java experience. Based on Big Nerd Ranch’s popular Android Bootcamp course, this guide will lead you through the wilderness using hands-on example apps combined with clear explanations of key concepts and APIs. This book focuses on practical techniques for developing apps compatible with all versions of Android widely used today (Android 2.2 - 4.2). Write and run code every step of the way – creating apps that catalog crime scenes, browse photos, track your jogging route, and more. Each chapter and app has been designed and tested to provide the knowledge and experience you need to get started in Android development.

Write and run code every step of the way — creating apps that catalog crime scenes, browse photos, track your jogging route, and more. Each chapter and app has been designed and tested to provide the knowledge and experience you need to get started in Android development.

"Big Nerd Ranch provided the training we needed to get hundreds of engineers building skillfully on Android. This book is a great distillation of that training and will be a huge help to anyone looking to ramp up as well." – Mike Shaver, Director of Mobile Engineering, Facebook

"…a must-have for the developer just starting in Android or ready for more advanced techniques. I was impressed with this book’s content and clarity of presentation. The authors explain simple and complex Android topics with equal ease." – James Steele, author of The Android Developer's Cookbook

Genres: Programming, Computer Science, Technology, Technical, Reference, Nonfiction, Software

625 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 16, 2012

Reviews

[Eric Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good book. The journey through this book teaches many things to build a strong foundation to be Android Programmer. It teaches things that you would never do in the wild but, you need to understand why. The curious and challenges sections are gold.

I have given 4 out of 5 stars, because it could be better.

Educational Approach and Visual design
It is a lot of text. First by getting someone to break down the chapters into sections, particularly the longer longer chapters e.g. nine. I would suggest talking about each section as a jigsaw puzzle piece and show how they connect to each other and why. Whilst this is in the contains its implicit rather than explicit. I would also sum up each chapter with what have you learned.

Colour
Would really help this book rather bolding everything

If this book was to teach the basic aspects in Java I would give it 6 out of 5

[Yoly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book to either use to learn Android development or just to use as a refresher. Recently updated in their 3rd edition, so the content is very fresh.

[Utsav Parashar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice book with lots of practical examples. Perfect beginner to advance material.

[Ilya · Rating 5 out of 5]

На мой взгляд, лучшая книга для начинающих разработчиков под Android.
Плавно погружает в тему с самых основ и до довольно сложных вещей. Всё это на конкретных примерах. Охватывает широкий круг тем.
Однозначно рекомендую всем, кто хочет научиться создавать приложения под Android. Одной этой книги будет достаточно, чтобы стать джуном.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book.

I got a lot out of it, and have made some pretty substantial changes to my Android watchface that I have been developing over the last few months - from the tips of this book.

I also started coding an app as well.

I found the most useful part of this book was how to navigate around Android Studio. That is really not a very intuitive IDE!

The book actually doesn't get that in-depth with advanced coding principles, so it would be easy for newer developers.

I would recommend!

4.3/5

[Sepideh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me two years to read. The third edition of this book has come out since the time that I started reading this book.

This is a big book that can teach you how to write programs for Android using Java. One of the useful features of this book is the forum where you can research issues that you might be having. Sometimes, the technology changes so rapidly that it is really useful to have something like that.

[Kirill Chernikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite Android Development book I've read so far. Thanks to concisely content, I found out diverse ways of handling development problems. Not to mention the author's sense of humor which is absolutely tremendous. Definitely must-read book for anyone who wants to make the first steps in Android Development journey.

[Abbas · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best technical books I have read, teaching you android development by employing best practices in an step-by-step and simple fashion; the only things missing were Unit testing and Android UX.

[Hendro Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Systematic and easy to understand good practices.

[Hakan Yorgancı · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was precise and effective for beginners. With online tutorials if you also follow this book at the same time you will have very stable basics for application development in Android environment.

[Lars Ole Christoffersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good introduction to Android Programming. I have a background in JAVA programming and found this book an excellent introduction to android programming

[Alexander Yakushev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for learning the current best practices of Android development. It's very well written, full of important details and useful tasks.

[Jeff Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE book to read to learn Android programming, as of late 2019.

[Ľuboš Barskto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Velmi prijemna ucebnica Androidu. Alebo lepsie povedane cvicebnica, pretoze preberana latka sa zaroven pocas citania aplikuje do praxe (tzv code as you read). Takymto sposobom, ak prejdete celou knihou, vytvorite az 7 roznych funkcnych Android aplikacii. Kniha obsahuje aj velmi zaujimave sekcie s prefixom v nazve "For the More Curious:", kde su zvycajne opisane veci, ktore z nejakeho praktickeho uhla pohladu nepotrebujes vediet, ale ked ta bavi Android, tak to aj tak chces vediet :D Su tam este casti nazvane "Challenge:", kde je citatelovi predostrena nejaka uloha, zvycajne aj zopar tipov na riesenie a citatel ma implementaciu zvladnut sam.

Problem tychto challenges je ten, ze napr v appke "CriminalIntent", na ktorej citatel pracuje v priebehu niekolkych kapitol, moze vplyvom implementacie nejakeho challengu zmenit kod natolko, ze pokracovat dalej s vecami, ktorych implementacia je v knihe priamo znazornena, je na dalsi challenge. Bolo to sice celkom zaujimave transformovat kod z celej kapitoly na kod ktory som vytvoril v ramci challengu, ale trochu ma to zdrzalo a niekoho by to aj mohlo celkovo odradit (vela samostatnej prace naraz). Preto by som specialne pri CriminalIntent odporucal robit kazdy challenge do separatnej git branche a az potom mozno nakoniec si spravit ako challenge merge do mastra.

Kniha sa vsetkym temam venuje iba povrchovo, napriek tomu ma 600 stran a cital (a programoval) som ju pol roka. Projekty mam na svojom GitHube a mam s nimi dalsie plany (zmrsim ich nejakymi Observables ktore som si nacital v Learning RxJava :)).

[Juris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is good book for starting Android development journey.
I can't find better books instead of this.
Before You start, You need experience with Java and OOP.
I wish this book have more explanations and references to Android programming resources, sites, videos, developer documentation e.t.c.
I hope the next edition will be in Kotlin.

[Cesar Diez Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having in consideration that I read the 2nd edition published in August 2015 I have to say the content is good. I was able to review some important internals of Android like Processes and Tasks and interesting Intent related stuff. At least 1/3 of the book is outdated but it might have been fixed with the third edition of the book. Really good book for beginners :-)

[Paolo Tormon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practical and straight to the point, although I've only been able to read through 30% of the book before deciding to pursue another specialization⁠.

Still, it's perfect for beginners on Android development. Would recommend 10/10

[Zee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25*

Mã được viết bằng ngôn ngữ Kotlin.
Mình thường sử dụng Java nên cuốn sách làm mình hơi vất vả một chút trong việc chuyển đổi ngôn ngữ.
Cuốn sách cơ bản dành cho người mới bắt đầu và không phải ai mới bắt đầu cũng dễ dàng để đọc vì bạn phải biết viết mã.

[Dmytro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book which is updated regarding Android SDK updates.
Lots of useful examples with great explanation.
Include Android application architecture discussions

[Haunted Eyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

best book for android programming...

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Hands on but deep enough to explain what's happening.

[Akin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book with solutions to complex problems..

[Kirill · Rating 5 out of 5]

thank you for teaching me about lipids and fragments, Bill!

[Абдуазиз Умаров · Rating 4 out of 5]

Пп

[Teancum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great tool! Got me through a truncated summer course! Took me a week to master Android studio and another week to pump out a 97 on my final!

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't the perfect learning book on Android Programming but it's very good. I only have a couple of quibbles with how some content was presented. I don't have the first edition of this but suspect if you do, you probably don't need this second edition. They do cover some of the differences that come with Lollipop (e.g. RecyclerView) with a bit of discussion about why the new stuff is better but it's not a large part of the book. The last chapter on Material Design was disappointing and only intended to give a small catalog of what some of the material design component are but no direction on how/when to use them. This treatment is explained at the very beginning of the chapter: "as developers we are usually only peripherally concerned with questions of design. Our job is to get the job done, no matter what "it" is." I can understand this sentiment and am aware of many places where this may be the case, but I don't necessarily agree with it personally, nor in a general sense. But other than that one (out of 33) chapter, everything is very well paced and logically laid out in a way that if you follow the order of putting the building blocks together in the same way they do, you'll get a working app in very little time. I wish there was some attention given to working with GitHub. My recommendation for others, do as many of the Challenge exercises as you can. They're there for a number of reasons: learning how to learn directly from the Android documentation, putting polish on "standard" application components, and learning to think through HOW your app is going to be used.

[ambivalent_crab · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've tried a number of different resources like books and online courses, and this book is way ahead of them.
This book does just the right thing for someone unfamiliar with Android concepts. It doesn't overwhelm you with rephrased documentation that you can lookup yourself. It doesn't give you a written application and asks you to change a couple of lines in it.
Instead, this book works with you and explains concepts as clearly as it can get. Numerous times I would have a question and start to make some searching just to find the answer on the next page. Obviously the authors have huge experience in teaching this material.
Exercises should be mentioned separately: they are wonderful. In fact, these are among the best I've ever seen, which probably isn't much but still. Instead of redoing the work done in a chapter (or God forbid choose the right answer quizzes) exercises challenge you to extend your app, usually moving beyond what you already know.
Sure, there are topics that weren't covered here, for example Content Provider, but I think it's much easier to pick them up after reading the book.
If you are looking where to start with Android, you are in the right place. I only wish there were more books like this one.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

In general, I really enjoyed this book. I liked the way they structured it, and the necessity for digging around and mucking about in the code. Each extension to the apps made sense in the way they built upon each other.

What I felt I was missing after finishing this was more of a "big picture" view. It felt that I was almost entirely in the details, and didn't have enough pauses to put together the architectural details. Perhaps if there had been a high level summary or preview before diving into the implementation, rather than nestling all of those details among the exercises, it would have helped me more.

I'm going to go through the second edition shortyly, but I'm going to also in parallel read a different, higher-level approach, and see if I can synthesize what I'm imagining.

[Jaroslav Tuček · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is easily one of the most enjoyable technical books I've read in years. It provides an excellent coverage of the entire Android platform, getting beginners quickly up to speed, and while none of the topics can be realistically expected to be discussed in depth, by the end of the book you will have obtained sufficient understanding of the system to be able to quickly find any required details in the reference.

The writing style is clear and concise, and the way the material is presented by walking you basically line by line through building a series of apps will leave you with a sense of accomplishment and - provided that you actually build those apps while reading the book - then also with complete confidence that you've truly learned the subject and can immediately put it to use.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to learn Android programming on your own, get this book.

Clearly written, well-paced, and with examples that actually work, plus there is an active web forum (where the Big Nerd Ranch folks will answer your questions) if you get stuck.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. One of the best programming books I've ever come across.