Android development – what not to do

Writing DroidIn was a very good exercise (it still is) Along the way, thanks to unforgiving users I’ve learn few things that Android developer should avoid at all cost. Here are few as well as tips:

• Never ever execute things of any considerable length on the same (usually main) thread as your current Activity. Your users will be presented with “Wait or Cancel” choice and
  1. They will be annoyed
  2. 90% will click “Cancel” and never use your app ever again
• What to do instead? Spawn the thread, use TimerTask or just plain Runnable and read some good Java concurrency book before you do that
• Learn Services. That’s where the platform truly shines
• Do not add new features before you make your existing one work as intended. And that means: Fix Bugs!
• Yes, yes, I know – it’s boring and you have all these grande ideas, but if you don’t cover your basics well you will loose your users
• Read your feedback. Even from trolls. It will make you angry so put that adrenalin into bug fixing.
• Learn by example. Find good open source project and just see how it’s layout, how it’s designed and implemented. I’ve learn so much from Oauth-Signpost: thank you guys, you are an awesome bunch
• Steal. Yeah – from forums, blogs and Open Source, just try to find something you can use or reuse and use/reuse it!
• Ask questions, lots of questions! Android Developer forums are indispensable and so is http://stackoverflow.com
• Keep coding, you will get it…