Warning: Rant. I am far from a "pro" developer, but I have participated in Open Source development in the past, and with a book on my lap, and 2 monitors full of quick reference guides and web forums, I can usually get things to compile.
I have also done my own version of "Hello World" as well as a simple game in the Android SDK. They run fine in the emulator. I'd like to use Android to teach my son programming, but it is way too complicated. He'll stick with Tcl/TK for a while. I'm not seeing the point of Android, at least not yet, but that may come with experience. My first few feeble attempts to do anything with the Android source have been even more frustrating. As a simple start, I decided to try to add a Green text on Black background option to Term.apk. At first, I tried to pull out the source and build it as a seperate project. I got it set up to built by itself, and ran into the fact that android.os.Exec is appearenty not in the SDK. That's interesting, since the introduction video states that there are no hidden or reserved API's. Apparently, there are no hidden API's except that one. If I try to build something else, I guess I'll find there are no hidden API's except android.os.Exec, and whatever I need to build what ever I try next. OK, so I can't build Term separately --- Back to the full Android source. I follow the instructions to built for the Dev phone, and after a while, I have a full, current, master built, and ready to load into my Dev phone -- the resulting images even work in the emulator. Cool. now I can change the colors in Term, and just make it again. Well, now it complains about not having java.io.IOException Apparently, it didn't really build Term.apk. No that I changed it, it has to *really* build it, but again there is something missing. Please note that I changed NOTHING in the code -- just the color values (and relevant stuff like the text in the arrays used in the prefs.) I guess I am kinda missing the point of Android being open source. If I can't even change a color value, and/or some text, re-compile, and have an executable with different colors in it, it does not seem very open source to me. I have been doing exactly the same thing for the Linux kernel, and Xorg for years. One I get a valid build environment set up, I can change stuff to my heart's content, and just make again. Just making a valid change to a constant or string, should not prevent something from building that just built a minute ago. Please understand that I am new to git, and this may be a git issue, but again, it seems to be arbitrarily over complicated. This sounds like (is) a rant, but I want everyone to see the frustration that a new, prospective developer is having. I may never do anything more significant for the platform than change colors in an app that "regular" consumers will never use, but if other potential developers, including ones that may actually do something productive, have a negative initial experience, they may leave, and never come back. Why can't I build Term.apk? What am I doing wrong? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Beginners" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-beginners?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
