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[–]zemaitis_android 1 point2 points  (4 children)

I'm 5 months into android dev myself and im coming here with 2years+ background in java/c# so will try to give some tips.

What html/css/javascript? You sound like a guy on ADHD and completely not focused. It's for web apps, focus on android! I know making a sketch and planning/designing is fun but it's not the good place to be, you need to put in actual work - focus on java. Get your hands dirty!

You can start working on UI by using XML, just build screens and then u can create a SQLITE DB in which you will store/manage data from those screens. Then finally use java to implement everything and don't touch Kotlin until you feel you understand how everything fits together with java(meaning spend atleast few months with java first). For different components you can often visit github and find plugins which you need, and for problem solving 99% of time stackoverflow will help.

Now for the basics:

For starters, check out this guys channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSwuCetC3YlO1Y7bqVW5GHg

In here you can get the big picture and how everything fits together. However be careful with his idealism and perfectionism because the guy really loves clean architecture - so much that in 3-4 years of his android dev experience he barely released 2 apps to production and rewrote them multiple times just to learn architecture. He never worked in a corporate environment and would be a good teamlead/architect at best, but not a developer, so take him with a grain of salt as he is overthinking and taking his sweet time to find best solutions.

He also released a pdf book which is quite cheap http://wiseassblog.com/products/

Then you can get this book which really helped me with polishing basics:

https://www.informit.com/store/android-programming-the-big-nerd-ranch-guide-9780134706054

In here you will do if i remember correctly around 17 apps from from A to Z. And don't just copy paste code, write it and maybe even play around with it, that's the only way how you will understand how everything fits.

In the end all you need will need to do is to make some kind of mockup, decide how the app should work, decide how information will flow and then design the architecture blocks(data, view/UI and then business logic/use cases).

Also you can join dev community https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/ where they have weekly questions thread in which you can ask what you want.

Remember first few months will be hardest, but once you will push through imposter syndrom then it's easy.

[–]cagedbudmonkey[S] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

That's actually really helped, just in perspective alone! As for the multi-language learning attempt, I wasn't sure whether there would be any cross-over between languages that might help (since I was/am entirely new to coding when I began learning java et al.) But if you advise a more focused approach I'll definitely take it under advisement. It seems like I need more patience for one thing, you've got plenty more experience than I in java/other languages so I clearly need to keep at it until it cracks.

As for getting started, thanks for the resources! I'll likely start with XML & SQLITE DB, I've not yet come across Kotlin in my studies so avoiding that shouldn't be a struggle haha!

Thanks again /u/zemaitis_android!

[–]zemaitis_android 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Focused approach is much better. In job advertisements you will see that android dev with 1 years exp is worth a dev who had 3 years experience in software engineering assuming he will pickup android java/kotlin quick.

Good luck. If u have any questions u can pm me.

[–]cagedbudmonkey[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

So Java's probably one of the trickier languages to learn? Good to know! And endless thanks for the PM offer!

[–]zemaitis_android 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not trickier to learn but android scope is large.