If you want to learn Android, you might as well listen to how engineers are trained

Interested in Android but don't know how to get started; already a developer but still want to find new ways to advance in technology. If you are troubled by such problems, you might as well listen to how engineers from the Google Developer Community (GDG) in China learn Android.

As an Android engineer at Flipboard, Zhu Kai started out as a Java developer, and had a lot of trouble switching from Java to Android. In his own words, when he quit his job in 2012 and taught himself Android at home, he encountered many setbacks while looking for a job as an Android developer in Beijing, so much so that he began to feel like an Android rookie.

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So what made the Android rookie finally chosen by Flipboard? The answer is an open source Material Design visual library MaterialEditText. Zhu Kai used this visual library to make some standard things (such as view controls) universal so that everyone can use them. Developers can also save time to polish the unique difficulties and details in the software, instead of having different people spend time to create the same thing.

Within Flipboard, their Android team was also a beneficiary of MaterialEditText, and Zhu Kai therefore joined Flipboard China through an internal employee recommendation.

In terms of learning methods, Zhu Kai and Beijing GDG community organizer and developer Han Guokai both believe that Android's official development documentation is a good guide. In addition to the documentation, YouTube channels such as Google Developers and Android Developers, as well as Android development tutorial videos jointly organized by Google and Udacity are also high-quality Android development resources.

Of course, in addition to the content provided by Google, there are many technology enthusiasts at home and abroad, and their blogs and translations are also worth referring to. There are also some technical self-media maintained by volunteers out of enthusiasm or semi-commercial nature (because it contains advertising), which are also good resources.

In addition to continuous learning, a good developer should also come up with solutions when encountering problems. Zhu Kai used to rely mainly on Baidu to find answers, but later he began to choose different ways to solve problems, such as Google search, browsing the official Android developer site, viewing source code, and searching on StackOverflow, depending on the type of problem. In his opinion, learning more and practicing more are the main ways to improve his skills. Specifically, he should read more official Android development documents and the source code of some key parts of the Android Framework, and apply what he has learned to actual combat (the company's projects or his own projects).

Google now makes some updates to Android at the I/O conference almost every year, such as Material Design in 2014 and application permission control in 2015. While these new parts continue to improve Android, they also bring developers opportunities and challenges to try new things. So if you want to be a good developer, in addition to diligence, the most difficult thing is probably to maintain your curiosity to accept new things.