Alex’s Notes

Alex’s Notes

Alex Reid  //  Software developer from Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. All of the dubious opinions stated here are purely my own and not those of my employer.

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android

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Apr 28 / 2:53am

Developers, eggs and baskets

I am currently handing over the system that I have worked on for the past three years. It is written in ColdFusion. 

I have noticed two things:

  • some developers are initially wary of something less familiar, while some are keen to embrace something new
  • an implicit assumption is made that you must be wedded to that platform you work in: "I am a .NET developer so you must be a ColdFusion developer."

In actual fact, I see myself as just being a developer.

Someone actually remarked that they were surprised that my new employer made use of ColdFusion. They don't, of course. Do developers get typecast? 

I develop in many different languages and frameworks. Java, mainly, but also C#, T-SQL, Python, Objective-C and Cocoa. Does this versatility make me a jack of all trades and a master of none? Some would say yes.

I just prefer to consider myself as someone who is not shackled to any particular platform. Us developers have transferrable skills which mature throughout our careers. Implementation languages and frameworks are only half of the story. I'm not saying that it is wrong to specialise and become expert in something. I am not saying it is wrong to specialise. I'm saying it's wrong to deny the existence of any other technology. 

I understand why management favour a unified and supported technology path. There's less risk. It makes sense. If you have a pool of .NET developers available, in theory they should be able to maintain each others code. 

It can, however, be a ball and chain, particularly in a mobile context. 

Successful companies and individuals will think outside their bubble and comfort zones.

It's simple economics. It makes sense to write software for the iPhone because it's huge at the moment. The tooling and documentation for the iPhone SDK are excellent.

Does this mean I'll burst into tears as Android's popularity continues to rise and the iPhone's popularity inevitably wanes and Apple go bankrupt (despite the billions) if we are to believe many of people I follow on Twitter? Will I have wasted my life in Xcode, typing square brackets? Not at all. I won't have called myself an iPhone developer. I'll still have been just a developer - developing for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and ... whatever else.

Being a mobile developer in 2010 will be very different to being one in 2015, that's for sure.

Filed under  //  android   career   development   iphone   mobile   rant   software  

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Feb 22 / 1:03am

Speaking at SuperMondays tonight about mobile development

Tonight I will be speaking at SuperMondays about mobile development, with a live coding demo showing the build of a simple app for #Android powered devices. I hope to keep a good part of the talk generic so it appeals to as many as possible. If you're going, I hope it proves useful. There's a fair bit to get through but feel free to comment/shout/agree/disagree at any point during the talk.

Update: Here are my slides.

Exciting times. I am collaborating on some shiny new mobile projects of all shapes and sizes, planned for release in the coming months.

Also, as of yesterday, there's a new North East mobile developers group - follow @appnorth on Twitter for more information. First meeting in March.

Filed under  //  android   iphone   mobile   supermondays  

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Dec 3 / 2:03am

Ask the Hoff - Android version now available on Android Market

Ask the Hoff is now available for Android phones! Scan the barcode below to download it!

I have been meaning to release a mobile app for some time, but wanted to wait until a novel enough idea came along. I was impressed with the ultra-simplicity of Ask the Hoff, developed by Paul (of @twitchhiker fame) and Jon, both of Never Odd or Even LLP. Because the app was simple but not trivial, I figured it would feasible to complete development in about a day. So, after taking the Hoff's advice via my iPod, I offered to port it to Android for them. They accepted!

Despite being a keen Mac user, I've never had an iPhone, despite thinking my iPod Touch is one of the best things I have ever bought. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I actually like having a 1990s personal organiser keyboard attached to my phone. I still use one of the first G1s to come out and have been a fan of the Android platform ever since: it has evolved rapidly in the space of a year. 

Android apps are programmed in Java inside the Eclipse IDE, despite not running in a JVM on the device itself. This is an environment I am extremely comfortable in. Overall, I am extremely impressed with the entire Android development experience: the IDE integration, debugger, emulator, the SDK and the extremely readable documentation on Android.com. The Eclipse integration is particularly good, although the GUI for laying out inter faces is nowhere near the slickness of Interface Builder. I generally edited the user interface layout XML directly. I will blog in more detail on the Android development experience later.

I look forward to working with Paul and Jon again (shame I'm not called George, then we'd only be missing a Ringo...) on future Android projects, as well as perhaps releasing a few apps of my own.

Edit: Forgot to say - many, many thanks to all the people who tested various builds of Hoff earlier this week.

Filed under  //  android   hoff   java   mobile  

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