As developers we've all heard about how open source product design is superior to the closed development model (a.k.a. Google versus Microsoft). Personally I lean much farther on this debate towards the closed source model; I find the benefits of having the support and QA tested products that the closed source model provides outweigh the cons.
Well anyways I've been working on installing the necessary files to start programming on my handy-dandy Android Phone for the last couple of weeks. And to put it lightly it hasn't been the peachy keen experience that you'd imagine.
Actually its been a horrible soul sucking experience that has almost, almost, turned me off completely from the idea of programming on the Android platform. What in the heck could go so impossibly wrong with something that should be so simple? Well let’s take a look at the steps needed to begin programming on the Android OS...
1) Install Java
2) Install a supported programming environment
3) Install Android SDK
That doesn't seem too hard; well at least not till you give it a shot, here’s what it actually took...
1) Install Java
First installation task, first draconian fail. I wen't to the Java download page via the power of Google and tried installing, aaaannndd my computer crashed.
Weird that shouldn't happen...
So a couple of minutes later and I'm back in Windows explorer, I click install aaannndd then CRASH.
Now my blood pressure is starting to boil a little, I by no means have a slow computer but it still takes a few minutes to be restarted so this is quite annoying. This time I gave it another try (I'm a glutton for punishment I know), I click install aaaaannnndd it works!
At this point I'm a bit befuddled, so I go to the Java page to check if it has indeed been installed properly and I'm kindly imformed by their website that it hasn't. At this point I'm starting to get pissed so I hurry over to my Google search bar and furiously look through the web until I found a message board poster having the same problem.
The solution? Install Windows 7 or downgrade to XP.
Well it just so happened that I had recieved Windows 7 from Jacksonville University as part of their Academic Alliance with Microsoft. Highly convenient but this situation is still irksome. So I backup my work and install the latest and greatest, now Java installs without a hitch.
2) Restart Your Computer
K'.
3) Install a supported programming environment
Turns out you can't simply use Microsoft Visual Studio to work on Android, that would be too easy, instead the Android FAQ's lists a few different open source development environments for you to Google and download.
Out of the few that are listed there is only one "right" answer. How would you find this out? If you guessed "Google which ones are still supported or in use" then your correct! And luckily this leaves only the Eclipse IDE as the only sound choice. Amazing work Google, why not just let everyone know off the bat that they should download Eclipse?
Well after you've figured out which IDE you need its time to go hunting for the respective download page and take a gander. Lo’ and behold you’ve got a plethora of options for Eclipse. What’s going on here? Which version of Eclipse needs to be installed? Common sense dictates to download Eclipse for Java since I just installed the Java environment in the previous step. But there is Eclipse EE for Java Developers and Eclipse for Java Developers.
Huh.
Well after some more research I found that if you want to program on the Android platform you'll need Eclipse for Java Developers. How would anyone figure this out the first time? Through trial and error? Thanks Google that’s just swell.
By the way the Eclipse folder that you download from their site has to be placed (by you) on your C drive. Unconventional much? Why not just make a Install package that the end user downloads that takes care of this? Come on seriously?
4) Restart Your Computer
Again? Well okay...
5) Install Android SDK
Okay after that frustration all we have to do is install the Android SDK on top of Eclipse, so we Google “Android SDK” and get to the download page and grab the corresponding version (Windows 32bit). I then noticed that there is one more step awaiting me below the download link. So in reality this is a four step solution to programming on Android.
But before we get the aformentioned next step I had to install the SDK that I just downloaded, this was actually a painless process, huzzah!
6) Restart Your Computer
Derrick Barra is getting tired of this...
7) Install the Android ADT Plug-in for Eclipse
The instructions for this are simple, you copy down a URL linked to on the Android installation guide and paste it on a menu option inside of Eclipse. Oh, too bad Google doesn't tell you to remove the "S" from the HTTP in the given URL since Eclipse goes bananas when you plug-in a address with a security protocol attached to it (HTTPS has security and HTTP is the standard URL transfer protocol we use every day). It took a good few minutes of Googl'ing this issue to find out what was going on. Bad Google Bad!
8) Restart Your Computer
Are we there yet?
9) Start Programming
Assuming your Java and XML is pretty good programming in Eclipse isn't that unusual, its interface is a labyrinthy mess of options and windows that makes me long for Unity or Visual Studio, but it’s at least functional.
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Come on now, were all those headaches necessary? Every other IDE that I've used has been a pleasure with a simple one click install, this is the first time that I've actually wanted to punch a Koala in the gut for something so elementary, and to think this was just the install process...
