Annyce Davis

Davis Technology Consulting

Conference: Android Summit 2015

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This is how Android Summit started for me! A delightful dinner for the speakers where I had the chance to make some new friends; including the friendly conference committee lead by folks at Capital One.

The highlight of any conference is the keynote, and I was excited to learn all about becoming an Android “Expert” from Chiu-Ki Chan! She explained how we can use blog posts, public speaking, videos, and books to share our expertise and thus become “experts”.  

The conference consisted of two tracks: Development and Design. I decided to put on my design hat and attend a few sessions.  I really enjoyed the talks on prototyping with Pixate and thinking like an Animator.

 

After that I had to scurry off and present my talk on developing maintainable apps. I really loved the positive energy from the crowd and the head nods as I explained the annoyances of messy code:-(

Considering this is the first time the conference was held, I’d say it was a smash hit. I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us next year!

Talk: Developing Maintainable Apps

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Great Android apps only include what’s needed to achieve the goals of the product, not enhance the resume of the developer. What’s more, the more maintainable an application is, the more likely it will have increased user satisfaction and decreased time to market.


So how can you do it?  Keep these four factors in mind:

  1. Choose your 3rd Party Components Wisely
  2. Keep your Code Simple
  3. Use Static Code Analysis Tools
  4. Write Unit Tests

Resources:

Testing Your Apps with AWS Device Farm

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Recently, I’ve been on a mission to enhance the quality of the tests in the Android applications that I work on.  To that end, I was introduced to the AWS Device Farm, a cloud based app testing platform.

It was very simple to set up and like most AWS products comes with free tier usage. You move through five steps (at most) and then your app will be tested on the devices you choose.  To get an idea of how it works, just follow the screenshots below.

1. Choose Your Application

2. Configure a test

3. Select Devices

Then you are presented with some additional device configuration options (bluetooth, NFC, GPS, etc.). Finally, you have the ability to review and submit your run configuration. Once all of the devices have completed running your tests you can then drill down and view the individual results of each test.

Test Results


If you try it out, leave me your thoughts below.

Android Devs Listen Up!

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So listening to podcasts used to be the “thing”, then it wasn’t the “thing” anymore, and now it’s back to being the “thing” to do.  So with that in mind I thought I’d share some of my favorite podcasts for Android developers.

Fragmented

So Fragmented is a podcast for Android Developers that focuses on providing information about the trends in Android Development and the best tools available to produce quality applications.  What I like about this podcast is that the hosts are actual developers responsible for building and maintaining apps that are in the wild, so it lends credibility to the advice that they provide.
 
Favorite Episodes So Far:

Android Developers Backstage

Android Developers Backstage is also focused on Android as the name implies, however it is hosted by two Google employees.  So it allows you to hear the motivation behind some of the platform decisions and get a better understanding of how Google intended for certain APIs and tools to be used by developers.
 

Java Posse

Finally, I leave you with the Java Posse podcast. I only just discovered this one and unfortunately they are no longer making any new episodes. However, the archives are still available and they are full of great content for Java developers.  Each and every episode that I’ve heard so far has left me with at least one idea that I can use to continue growing as a Java developer.
 
Favorite Episodes So Far:
 
Unfortunately I don’t know of any technical podcasts where the hosts are women, so if you do, please leave me a comment below. Thanks!

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