Murach's Android Programming

My first Murach book was MySQL. This is my second. And I'm now a HUGE fan of the format.If you need to start from "How do I spell Android?" all you have to do is start at the beginning and work through the examples. It's refreshing to be able to simply download all the examples from the book and load them into ADT. They work out-of-the-gate, which makes it far easier to tweak them to see if I've learned the particular area.If you've done a little work in Android, and/or are more familiar with Java, Eclipse, MVC, etc - you'll find some sections you can quickly skim as the concepts are familiar, whereas others you can either get a quick hit from the right-hand-page, or read the pithy-yet-very-useful text on the left-hand-page.I dove into Android after a year of iOS development thinking "How hard can it be?" After a week of uncomfortably slow progress, I'm so happy I invested in this book. Although it's true that there are online tutorials by the gazillions, I find Murach FAR easier to follow - the book introduces concepts in a nice fine-grained level so that whatever your speed, you won't get lost. Plus the tutorials I found don't always integrate best practices or Eclipse shortcuts. Moving from Xcode to Eclipse at first I found Eclipse very much wanting. Three chapters through Murach and I realize Eclipse also has redeeming qualities - you just have to know what the short cuts are.Whether you are new to programming or new to Android, I highly recommend this book.

Having read quite a number of different technical reference books over the last twelve years, I'd rank this up there as one of the best written, presented and edited books and I'm only through Chapter 10. Being completely new to Android programming (although not new to Java), this book was structured in an overall manner which presented core concepts up front and emphasized those concepts throughout the book.One of my favorite things of this book is how the material was presented with concepts on the left hand side and then code samples or snippets and a short summary on the right. While other books would've meshed concepts and code together many times rather than allow for tons of white space, the way he's done it here is consistent throughout the book and I felt works well.Obviously lots of material in this book will become quickly outdated (I was going through it in April-June 2014), but hopefully updated versions will be made available. The code presented in the book (not just samples but suggested exercises which require readers/coders to finish) are available for download and I haven't come across any noticeable errors yet.The one thing I would like to see a bit more of is more discussion of security best-practices, but perhaps I haven't got to that point in the book yet.

I purchased this book a few weeks ago, and I have to say that is was exactly wanted I wanted in an instructional book. Everyone talks about these Murach books and how well the layout in the book allows for an easier reading experience and retention level, and I would have to ditto those remarks. They go deep into explaining what you need to know, but keep the reading and learning down as simply as possible. I've purchased a few other Android book before this one and was left disappointed and bewildered at times--especially those that teach you how to code a program then say "Oh, by the way, you don't want to do it this way." You all know who I'm talking about.At any rate, this is a good book, and it should be your first if you are thinking about getting into mobile, in my opinion. I can't speak highly--or intelligently--enough about this book. It;s amazing.Disclaimer: I did not get a free book for writing this article, but if you know how I can get one for doing so, please let me know. Sent me Murach's third edition of Java servlets and JSPs, please :)

I really like this book. I bought another android book first and got frustrated with it and stopped doing it. When I found this book it was so easy to follow and it was easy to learn how to make an android project. I HIGHLY recommend this book. Actually I have now bought several books from Murach and believe they are all good books. Joel really understands the material but is also an EXCELLENT WRITER, which is what makes his books so good.

I picked up this book for an Android development class I'm taking. I have dabbled a bit in Android development before, but this book really helped me to make sense of everything. The way things are explained is well done and easy to understand. I really feel that I now have a pretty good understanding of how to build Android applications. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to begin in Android development!

Source code is available and chapters teach basic's but lack details.For example, bare bones discussion on tables but doesn't go in to custom tables with borders and color schemes etc.Good starter book.

Not that easy to follow.

It is great if you want to learn to make apps. Very excellent book for an introductory class. Slow for my taste.

Joel Murach is one of my favorite book source for teaching. His books are easy to read and well structured. The samples are well-thought out.It is not a step-by-step book for those reading it next to their keyboards. Which doesn't matter as all the samples in the download are well tested.The book requires upfront deep knowledge of Eclipse, and a little bit of Java. I found out that for students used to the luxury of Visual Studio and C#/VB.NET this is the major obstacle.It also stops where Android becomes really interesting: REST and SOAP server access and othe enterprise-wide problems are not covered.Summary: highly recommended to Android beginners who can handle Eclipse and for teachers as how to explain Android idiosyncracies.