How I Began Android Development: Overcoming Challenges and Making Progress

Information Technology (IT) is a great tool for making a remarkable difference in the world- this is an awesome motivation for acquiring IT skills towards creating digital solutions that make life better.

Prior to my interest in Android app development, I already had an excellent background in Computer Science, with some experiences working with HTML and CSS for Front-end website design, and good knowledge of cloud computing.

I started learning Android App Development via the Google Africa Developer Scholarship (GADS) 2021 programme with the support of Google, Andela, and Pluralsight.

My first few days of practising the Android lessons learned were not without their challenges.

The first challenge that I had was the appearance of lots of red lines indicating errors in my first new project code files in Android Studio. It was really frustrating because I could not make progress without getting rid of the errors. I later realized that some components related to the newly created project were missing, and there was a need to connect to the internet when creating a project for the first time, so that all essential components could be downloaded accordingly. So, I closed my Android Studio, connected to the internet, and relaunched my Android Studio. Problem solved! The essential components were downloaded for my project and all the red lines indicating errors disappeared.

Furthermore, I noticed that internet connection was required when building the project for the first time, and when generating an APK or app bundle for the first time in Android Studio.

Moving forward, the second challenge I had was that when I tried to run the emulator to test the progress I was making in the app development task, my computer system slowed down and the emulator was taking a long time to run. I later realized that the cause of the problem was the size of my computer’s RAM (which was 4GB), so I upgraded it to 8GB RAM. After I increased the size of the RAM, the emulator worked normally when I ran it, and my computer system no longer slowed down whenever the emulator was in use.

Moreover, I encountered some challenges while working on the implementation of some app features. I was able to overcome the challenges by doing more online searches for solutions, and learning more through Andela Learning Community, YouTube, Stackoverflow, among others.

So far, I have realized that the more I practise the little concepts I learn, the better I develop my skills.

In conclusion, Android app development is an interesting exercise which requires some levels of diligence, patience, and good practice.

Thank you for reading.

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