wroolie

Android for the Visual Studio C# developer

June 27, 2012 by wroolie Leave a Comment

Last year, I started looking into learning Android development. I’m a C# developer who spends most of his time in Visual Studio, so I had some trouble getting accustomed to it. I’ve looked at a lot of ways to ease the transition into Android. Here are some of my thoughts:

Mono For Android or Proper Android Java

After struggling with Eclipse, I started looking into Mono for Android. I’m a C# developer, and I have to say that I felt a lot more at home in Visual Studio. I’ve also done very little Java development over the years. I took a week-long course in 1999—but mostly don’t use it.

I found Mono For Android to be decent, but it’s not easy. You still have to have learn how to use intents and activities and use the xml layouts that are expected. I found myself trying to learn the Android architecture and how the Mono libraries work with it.

Here are my problems with Mono for Android:

1. There is far less documentation than you would need. If you get in a bind, not many people would be able to help you.

2. It’s like learning VB.Net instead of C#. At some point, you have to take the hit and relearn a few things. Almost all of the example code you look at will be in Java.

3. I can’t be 100% that it will perform well enough on the device. There could be a performance hit. And you need to include the mono runtime, so it would bloat the size of your apk.

4. It costs $400. This is fine if I’m asked to create an app by the end of the week by an employer. But when learning for fun, it’s too high a price to pay. Besides, compared to “free”, it’s too expensive.

So, I prefer to native.

PhoneGap

I did a lot of stuff with PhoneGap too. I love coding in javascript and there is so much that can be done with HTML5. I was able to quickly code a little app that fed off data from Toodledo. For cross platform, I think this is ideal. But if I want to take full advantage of the Android platform, I would need to do native.

Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA

So, I struggled with Eclipse. Even things like autocomplete were throwing me because I was hitting TAB instead of ENTER to accept the autocomplete suggestions. It was messing me up. When I went back to Visual Studio, it was messing that up too. I hate having my flow upset like that.

The majority of tutorials for Android development are using Eclipse. All of the Android tools are well integrated into it.

However, JetBrains has a Java IDE called IntelliJ Idea which is soooo much better for a Visual Studio user than Eclipse is. Jetbrains also develop Resharper, so their shortcuts are very similar. There is a community edition (free) available here. I highly recommend it for Visual Studio developers moving to Android.

The only downside I see with IntelliJ Idea is that some tools like DDMS viewer are not integrated into the IDE. To use them, you have to go to the tools folder of your Android sdk folder and start them manually. But everything is there.

Windows Phone 7

I did some WP7 work last year. It’s a nice platform and I loved writing code for it. But the market share is too small. I know one person who has a Windows phone. I upgraded my phone this weekend, I looked at the Lumia—but went with the Galaxy S3. Maybe one day Microsoft will advance in the phone arena, but I have sincere doubts.

Some thoughts on Microsoft Surface

June 18, 2012 by wroolie Leave a Comment

So I woke up this morning t to see the Microsoft announced its Surface tablet. Since I was burned by Vista a few years ago, I decided I wasn’t going to be an early adopter of Windows 8. But the tablet looks interesting.

But I still think they will drop the ball.

What bothered me the most was the pictures from the announcement. Steve Ballmer standing in front of a cheering crowd in smart casual clothing showing off what the “kids” would love. This is how you do things these days—you try to be the rock star. That’s how Apple does it, so that’s how everyone does it. But Microsoft isn’t Apple. Everything Apple does is not great.

I would like Microsoft to do what they do best—take an existing idea (copy) and make it available to everyone. They copied Windows, but they made it available to everyone. They made it easier for software developers to code on, so millions of apps were built. They put it in people’s offices. They let manufacturers build new specs of hardware. They made the special things about Apple boring and mainstream.

I looked at the Microsoft Surface “About” page on Microsoft.com and see things like “Now you can chat with friends and respond to emails comfortably”. I love it when their marketing people try to sell it by making assumptions about what the mindless masses would do with it. I don’t want to see any pictures of people on skateboards or young people with perfect teeth excitedly pointing at a tablet. I don’t like the assumption that all anyone does these days is chat with friends and update Facebook. Windows succeeds because people use what they make as a tool—and not as a toy.

I use Windows because I like it better than I like the Mac. I stopped using an iPhone because I liked the freedom you get from Android.

The Surface marketing looks like the marketing for the Zune.

I don’t want Microsoft to try to join the cool kids table. I want them to make something I can use. They could really hit this one out of the park. But they have to stop trying to be Apple.

I hope they don’t blow it.

Woes of a Padres Fan

June 12, 2012 by wroolie Leave a Comment

Every baseball season is the same.

Despite my frustration with the San Diego Padres at the end of each season (there have been a few—far few—exceptions), I eagerly await the start of the baseball season in April. It’s usually a new team. Usually a young, inexperienced, team. There is hope in the air.

I eagerly watch games all through April and May. By June, I watch fewer games. It’s difficult to watch west coast games from England, and the effort is usually wasted considering how often my Padres lose.

At the All Star break (in early July), I try to re-join—but it doesn’t last long.

I’ll watch a few games in September because there is some ridiculous goal like “not finishing in last place” that they can still achieve.

By the time the playoffs start, if the Padres are not in it (most of the time), I swear that next year that I won’t bother with baseball. I won’t plop down the money for the MLB.com season. It’s too difficult to be a Padres fan overseas—and it’s not like they deserve it. I’m through with baseball, I declare. Maybe I should learn how the hell cricket is played.

I’m a Padres fan. I’m not even a fan of mediocrity. I’m just a fan of bad.

Then the cycle starts again the next year.

The Padres have 21 wins and 41 losses so far this year. They are last in the NL West. At the moment, they are the worst team in baseball. It’s all pretty much on schedule.