Basic Prerequisites of Learning Android App Development

This day’s craze of learning any technology is very high among students and Android development is one of the technologies. Nowadays almost everyone has a smartphone so the percentage of people using apps is high these days. So Android app development is an OnDemand technology. Students are also showing very interest to learning this technology. But before learn something you have to go through its basics and prerequisites. 

Advantages of Building Stronger Basics

Before building a huge construction one has to build a strong base. Like that more strongly you build your basic concept, you can build your main concept stronger. If your basics are strong you will learn faster and easier. When you can deeply understand the concepts you are learning, you can learn with more interest and also grasp the concepts more strongly.

If you directly jump to android development without building basics, you can make an app with drag and drop very easily. But when it comes to building a real-world, It needs core concepts of android and when it comes to this phase you may feel demotivated because you can’t understand any core concepts without basic knowledge. But when you understand the basics you can understand properly and more you understand more you can feel more interest.

Basic Prerequisites of Learning Android App Development

In android app development, it is quite easy to make a simple android app with drag and drop. But that is not called a real development, right? For learning real android development you have to learn the core concepts of android. You have to learn the core concepts about the 4 main components of android which are 

1. Activities: You can understand a little bit by seeing its name. The activity represents your app. The activity makes your app communicate with the user. Activity let the user use your app, which means all the screen, buttons, switch, and views are the part of the activity that helps to share your idea with the user. Users will see the app with the help of an activity. Shortly you can say it as “user interface”.
2. Services: Services are this part which users can’t see directly but It’s very important and one of the main parts of your app. Service runs in the background to perform long-running operations even if the users are not active and the application is destroyed. A service interacts with a content provider, performs multiplayer in the background threads.
3. Broadcast Receivers: Broadcast receivers help your app to communicate with android systems. With the help of a broadcast receiver, your app can communicate with other app events and system events. One has to be very aware of broadcast receivers. It can help to build a fast and user-friendly app by communicating with the system.
4. Content Providers: Content Provider is a very important part of android. It handles the data part of your app. It helps to provide the main content of your app with the main data that you want to show in your app. Not only you can access your app data you can also access the data of other apps as per your need and app permissions.

These are the 4 main pillars of android and to learn and understand these core concepts one has to build good basic knowledge. Here are some basic prerequisites to learn android development.

1. Basic Knowledge About Programming

To learn any technology stack one has to know about programming means one has to know about what is functions or methods, what is variables and how to use them to get a fruitful result, and some little bit about data structures like arrays, linked lists, etc. and how to use those to get beneficiated.

2. 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. Both languages are Object-Oriented Programming Language.

Java or Kotlin?

You can find too many opinions on this topic, I will tell you some pros and cons of both languages. At last, I will share my personal opinion, I hope It will help.

• Java: 
  • Pros:
    • Java is a very old language so one can find too many resources to learn that language, also if you are stuck somewhere you can easily find the solution by googling it.
    • If you are a B.Tech or computer science student you have to learn java because it’s in the syllabus. So you can start learning java.
    • I think in java one can more deeply understand the oops concepts (which is mentioned in the 3no. column) and understanding oops are very much important.
  • Cons:
    • With java, you have to write a lot of code.
    • With java one has to write too much code to perform some operations but in Kotlin it has some inbuilt feature to handle those tasks.
• Kotlin:
  • Pros:
    • Google declared Kotlin as an official language for android development.
    • Most of the companies are switching to Kotlin from java.
    • One has to write lesser code in Kotlin compare to java.
    • Kotlin has some features that can handle a critical task in very lesser code.
  • Cons:
    • There are not any such disadvantages of Kotlin.

Personal Opinion: No doubt Kotlin is the best language for android development there is nothing to argue about. If you started android development with java, you have to shift it to Kotlin one day. But In my opinion, If anyone can understand an object-orientated programming language properly, It’s very easy for his/her to learn another language. Coding and started learning with java may be harder than Kotlin but with java one can learn the core concepts more deeply and also can get more resources than Kotlin and If one can learn the main concepts properly then learning Kotlin and started development in Kotlin is a very easy task for him/her. In the end, language is just a way to execute ideas.    

3. Concepts of OOPs (Object Oriented Programming)

OOP concepts are the concepts of objects. Making an android app is so easy but making a real-world app with android is not only making an app it’s many more. When you come to know about the core concepts of android, you have to understand those concepts properly. For learning those core concepts you first need to OOP concepts. In OOP, there are 4 main concepts means you have to learn 

1. Encapsulation: Encapsulation is a way of wrapping up the data in a single unit and preventing the data being accessed outside of the wrap.
2. Abstraction: Abstraction is a way to hide nonessential information and show only essential ones.
3. Inheritance: As you can see its name it’s a way to inherit the properties of other classes. With that, you can use all features of a class to build other classes.
4. Polymorphism: As polymorphism means it can use classes and perform them in different ways. With that, an inherited class can act in different ways.

Conclusion

You have to understand those concepts properly. With these concepts, one can execute his/her ideas to their full potential. If you know the above 3 points you are good to go to learn android but unless you have to learn those above-mentioned 3 points to get the best out of learning android development.