Breaking Catch 22

Pro Android 2
by Dave MacLean

Pro Android 2 is aimed at developers who want to take Android to the next level. This large book serves as a manual for how to do almost anything on Android. The book starts by giving a refresher of the platform, and then quickly dives into explaining XML files, GUI layout and Views, and working with mapping. Building and consuming services are explained, giving the first example of working with Apache’s HttpClient libs that I have seen in an Android book. Examples of working with the Telephony API, searching, using gestures, you name it. The book even offers an alternative way of creating applications using Titanium Mobile. Finally time is spent explaining the Android Marketplace and things you should know before making your application public.

The information contained in this book is at the same time enlightening and overwhelming. In just the first few chapters, I had already found better ways to handle several things in my own Android applications. That alone was worth the time spent reading this book.

Although the book was written by three different authors, I found the writing style and flow of the book well done and congruous.

The book explains that the intended audience should have previous exposure to developing on the Android platform and to Java, and they mean it. While an introduction is given to the various parts of an Android application, a new developer wouldn’t be able to get enough understanding to use this book as a starting point for developing Android applications. Previous exposure to any number of beginning Android books is recommended before you attempt to tackle this one. The publisher suggest you start with Beginning Android 2.

If you are an Android developer, do yourself a favor and pick up this book. If you spend 2 minutes flipping through the various chapters, I promise you will walk out of the book store with Pro Android 2 in hand. My rating, 5 stars. The book delivers exactly what it advertises and does so in a manner that is enjoyable to read and very helpful.

The Definitive Guide to Jython
http://apress.com/book/view/1430225270

The authors describe this book as having the intended audience of a Java developer wishing to use a dynamic language other than Groovy orJRuby. This is a very accurate assessment.

The first section serves as a quick introduction to the Python language, however should not be completely skipped even by seasoned Python developers. As a Python and Java developer, it was good to see comparisons of similar features from both languages. In many cases, the authors took the time to show code examples from both languages, side by side.

The book then leads into practical application of Jython. In addition to sections on how to call Java code from within your Jython scripts, extremely detailed instructions are given for calling Jython code from within Java. Also, the reader is taken through instructions on setting up Jython with their IDE (a must for any Java developer) and using JDBC calls from within your scripts.

Next, the reader is taken on a journey through using Jython with JSP, Django, Pylons, Swing integration, and – very importantly – eployment to Java application servers such as JBoss and Glassfish. Readers are then exposed to testing techniques for Python/Jython,and details on Concurrency in Java and Jython.

The book ends with several Appendixes which should not be missed. Parsing XML with Jython? It’s there. Writing Ant task? Yep.

I give the book a 4 out of 5. The only thing that would have made the book better would have been to spend a little less time talking about Python syntax and explaining only the differences between the languages. My thought is that if someone buys this book, they have likely already read an introductory book on Python and will spend much of the first 160 pages reviewing what they already know. This could have been condensed to about 15 pages by showing only the differences between the languages. However, as I mentioned before, the comparisons of features, and the places where the integration points are mentioned, are worth reading that section.

I should warn Python developers looking to learn more about Java. This book is not for you. Many of the topics covered assume the reader has existing knowledge of Java, including application servers and GUI development with Swing.

If you are looking for a book on Jython, this is the only book I would consider buying. I highly recommend it for any developer looking to gain the speed and ease of Python within their projects. So, go out and buy the book. Support the authors for the obvious hard work they put into making such a great book.

Android Application Development
by Rick Rogers, John Lombardo, Zigurd Mednieks, and Blake Meike
Publication date: May 2009
336 pages

Reading previous reviews, my initial impressions were that the book wouldn’t live up to the description. In contrast, I found the book to be a good introduction to the platform and to specific requirements for building an Android application.

The book starts by explaining how to set up your system for development of Android applications with Eclipse. The information was correct and made no assumptions as to your previous exposure to Eclipse. While most of this information is available from the Android Developers site (http://developer.android.com), it did go a step further and explain the layout of the Eclipse IDE. This includes portions directly related to Google’s plugins.

Unfortunately this good section was followed by downloading and installing the MJAndroid project. The project doesn’t work. Like many other reviewers, I was able to download and compile the project, but it wouldn’t run in the emulator, without giving fatal errors. Given that this was the example project for the book, this was a major strike against the it.

The book proceeded to explain various portions of the project and how they relate to the topic at hand. While the explanations of each section of an Application was quite good, doing a good job of helping me to understand the subjects, the code in the downloaded application didn’t match what was printed in the book. It appeared as if the authors were continuing to make changes to the code (for a new edition maybe) and publishing them. Steps should have been taken to freeze the code and make it clear to readers what should be downloaded. This may be the reason the code wasn’t able run on the emulator.

Finally, time is taken to explore how an application is published and what must be done to submit to the App store, the Google APIs, and interacting with databases telephony, and Inter-Process Communication. These were some of the best chapters in the book.

Overall, if a second edition is planned, I would likely read it, especially given the smaller size of the book. The explanations of each section were great. The only overshadowing issue being that the example code didn’t match the actual code, and that it didn’t run on the emulator. My one request for a future edition would be to add a section on interacting with web services and parsing of XML and JSON. And again, thanks to the authors for not basing the entire book around the creation of a game. My vote, 3 stars. It is worth the read if you have a Safari sub.