CPS 251 Syllabus

I have not found any good textbooks for cps251. There are lots of books, but I haven't see anything that seems like a good fit for the class we have at WCC. I have created a lot my own material, but I think it would be good for you to have an Android programming book as a resource and as backup reading material to the course lectures. My own material has been gleaned from multiple sources and from the Android.com web site.

To show you some of the books I have considered, I have taken the following picture:

Android 4.4 App Development Essentials by Neil Smyth - Currently this book seems to me to be the best resource for you to buy if you want a book that supplements the course. The material that I have doesn't really make use of this book directly, but I think you might find some quite readable material in this book in case you are confused by the lecture material from cps251.

Promising Books: - In my search for a book that could be used as a textbook for cps251, I encountered a few books that I considered promising. In this list, you will find Beginning Android 4 by Grant Allen, Murach's Android Programming, and Android Programming The Big Nerd Ranch Guide. The Nerd Ranch book seems to currently be a popular book, but the problem I had with it is that the examples build on each other and don't stand on their own. This is a problem for me because if I pull out an example near the end of the book, I would need to cover all of the mini-steps in the rest of the book to thoroughly understand it. I prefer having examples and chapters that can stand on their own to a some extent.

Professional Application Development by Reto Meier - In my book collection above, you will see 2 versions of this book. The original book (Android version 2 on the left) is where I started my learning on Android. Later you can see that I purchased the version of the book that was upgraded for Android version 4. This book was used as a resource in cps251 during 2013. Many of the videos from 2013 will be used this semester. In these videos, I occasionally mention "the textbook" and this is probably the book I am referring to. Although this book is a good reference book, I found that it wasn't very readable for most of my students. I have learned a fair number of concepts from this book.

Hello, Android by Ed Burnette - I used this book as the required book for cps251 during 2012. This book is readable but quite weak on content.

There are other books that you might want to consider as a resource, but it often takes time to evaluate a book's effectiveness.

Approach and Perspective:

• Most of the work we will do in this class can be run on the Android simulator. So it won't be absolutely necessary to have a real Android phone for this class. However, it will be more fun if you can download your program onto a real phone.
• I would like to encourage the usage of the Android documentation as a means to learn things one could not find in any book.
• I plan to have homework assignments that provide you opportunities to solidify the concepts. I plan to create the lectures ahead of class time as a video.
• Android programming has evolved very quickly and is still in the process of changing. Therefore this course will not be as smooth as a course on a topic that has been stable for a while. Be aware of the following issues:
  • Expect the tools to have bugs. They are getting better. I have seen a marked improvement since 2010.
  • I don't want to present my self as an expert on Android programming. There are lots of things I haven't tried yet, but I am willing to look into issues that I don't have an immediate answer to.
  • We would like our classroom experience to be one where we are supportive of each other. The analogy I want you to hang on to is a comparison of traveling to California in a plane (like a well seasoned course), versus a new class like ours where we are traveling to California in a Covered Wagon. Expect the wheels to fall off sometimes and possibly we might be attacked by Indians. But if we work together we should get there.
  • By the way, the payback for being a pioneer in new technologies is that you learn SO MUCH MORE. I can attest to this from my own personal experience.

CPS251 Course Content

The following topic list does not necessarily represent the order in which material will be covered in the course.

• Android GUI using widgets/views and ViewGroups.
• Android Drawing (onDraw).
• Intents.
• SQLite.
• Accessing Google Maps and location sensing(GPS, etc).
• Multiple Threads
• Accessing data from the Web
• Services
• AlarmManager and Broadcast Receivers
• Desktop Widgets

Java Courses Available at WCC

The Class Policy can be found in the following link:

Class Policy - A video going over this is available from the course navigation window. Make sure you watch it.

In this course, the 40% for Tests that I normally have for my courses is allocated a little differently.

• No midterm - This provides more time to provide course content. The problem here is that Mid-semester grades will be less representative of the whole semester.
• End of Semester Project(20%) - The project will be something of your own choosing that will be presented to the class.
• Final(20%) - The Final will be an open book, open web short answer(i.e. multiple choice, matching, etc.) test to provide a way for you to review the course terminology.

Information about how to do assignments and tests can be found in the following link:

Assignments and Tests

Class Participation

In order to do Class Participation, each assignment will require posting an entry to a discussion board. The following link has the details on how this works:

Class Participation and Discussion boards