I studied Computer Science at university, and worked as a developer for several years only to find out that, although I'm good at it, programming is just a hobby for me.
That is to say that I enjoy it immensely, but don't like doing it for 9 hours straight the way my employers want me to.
When it comes to hitting your head against a wall to figure out how to make something work, I'm there. My friends were taking one programming language as an elective at one point, and I learned it just out of sheer curiosity. It's fun!
This curiosity coupled with the fact that I own an android handset, has led me to try to develop applications for android.
The last time I used java was several years back, and only because I had to as a college requirement for a project. And at the time, we had to write simple servlets. So today I decided that I would like to try the infamous "Hello World" program on the android platform.
The first step of course is to Google "Hello World for android" and find the appropriate tutorial, which I did. The tutorial guides you through setting up your machine in order to begin development.
It starts out with a list of things to download. Eclipse, Google Android Kit... seems pretty simple and straightforward, all links provided.
I was excited!
I downloaded the Google Android SDK. Tried to run the setup, but it won't work because it requires the download and installation of JDK. I downloaded and installed JDK but the Google kit still wouldn't run because it couldn't detect the java installation. I researched that and found out that I need to add a class path variable. Ok great! Still excited!
I ran the Google kit setup again, and it ran smoothly...up until it presented me with a list of I don't know how many items that it needs to download and install.
Here's a snapshot of its activity:
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Installed Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 6
Downloading Documentation for Android SDK, API 13, revision 1
Installing Documentation for Android SDK, API 13, revision 1
Installed Documentation for Android SDK, API 13, revision 1
Downloading SDK Platform Android 3.2, API 13, revision 1
Installing SDK Platform Android 3.2, API 13, revision 1
Installed SDK Platform Android 3.2, API 13, revision 1
Downloading SDK Platform Android 3.1, API 12, revision 2
Installing SDK Platform Android 3.1, API 12, revision 2
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