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Google Launches Android Programming Course For Absolute Beginners (zdnet.com)

If you're on the fence on whether or not should you spring for learning how to code, Google is willing to offer a helping hand. The company has partnered with Udacity to offer a "nanodegree" class designed for people with no programming experience at all. The program costs $199 per month. ZDNet reports:The course material, developed by Google, is hosted on learning platform Udacity and builds on earlier programs such as the Android Nanodegree for Beginners. The basics course takes around four weeks if the student commits six hours a week and upon completion they'll have created two basic apps built in Android Studio."Google, in partnership with Udacity, is making Android development accessible and understandable to everyone, so that regardless of your background, you can learn to build apps that improve the lives of people around you," Google announced on its developer blog.

50 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Re:nano-degree class ? by srmalloy · · Score: 2

    No, TFA isn't even buzzword compliant.

  2. Re:nano-degree class ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Looks like they hooked up the Slashdot "Firehose" directly to the Google marketing department.

  3. Re:$199 per month by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    The bigger question is are you willing to invest in yourself? Paying $199 per month might be worth it. Most people who seek free learning materials on the Internet lack commitment because they don't have any money on the line.

  4. Re: nano-degree class ? by cyber-vandal · · Score: 2

    Why the fuck do people on a tech website seem to be utterly unable to use Google.

  5. Re:$199 per month by frovingslosh · · Score: 1

    By that logic all of the people who fell for "Trump University" are now billionaires.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  6. Re:What is the point? by NotDrWho · · Score: 1

    Great, so now all we have to do is learn C++. Should be pretty easy.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  7. Re:$199 per month by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    By that logic all of the people who fell for "Trump University" are now billionaires.

    There's a difference between investing in yourself and investing in a "get rich quick" scheme. Unfortunately, most people don't know the difference and want a ready made solution that requires absolutely no effort on their part.

  8. Programming is not the important thing by OffTheLip · · Score: 3, Insightful

    problems begging solutions are. When I was programming professionally I never thought being able to program was as important as having a problem to solve requiring a programming language. App development is the same, find a reason to program, solve the problem in your mind, apply a language and you are a programmer.

    1. Re:Programming is not the important thing by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Obviously you have never met my friends. "Hey, I have a great idea for this app. Can you program it for me?"

    2. Re:Programming is not the important thing by infolation · · Score: 2

      That's what Apache Cordova was invented for.

      Mobile apps with HTML, CSS & JS
      Target multiple platforms with one code base
      Free and open source

  9. Money by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well at least someone figured out how to make money with Android apps: Udacity.

    1. Re:Money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      except the classes are also available for free.

  10. Re:What is the point? by sexconker · · Score: 4, Funny

    Writing C/C++ is easy.
    Reading C/C++ after it has been written is hard.
    Writing secure C/C++ is very hard.
    Reading someone else's C/C++ is nearly impossible, therefore you can copy-pasta it assuming it is secure.

  11. Re:Hope it's better than the official guide by sexconker · · Score: 1

    I can confirm that the official guides/tutorials are a complete fucking mess.
    Their IDE is bloated and unwieldy.
    The emulator is slower than a one-legged cricket in January.

  12. Re: nano-degree class ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Speaking of Google, you might want to use it and search for "finding a sense of humor."

  13. Re:What is the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Great, so now all we have to do is learn C++. Should be pretty easy.

    It was- at least for us C prgrammers.

    Back in the early 90s when I first took up C++ (and it became a resume 'must'), it was nothing. Lot's of great things to make programing easier and more productive.

    Great.

    I haven't touched C++ code in almost 20 years and it makes almost no sense now.

    And people think that's good?

    Folks make fun of COBOL, but let me tell you something, it survives because it is good.

    Yeah, yeah, yeah, get off my lawn ...

    But really, Computer Science has stagnated.

  14. Re:$199 per month by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    My cousin works from home and earns $4500 a week.

    Investing in a "get rich quick" scheme is not the same as investing yourself.

  15. Re:What is the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    After about 8 weeks of total combined android development under the belt... yeah, Android kinda sucks. It just feels weird. It's both too low-level AND too abstracted. It is very class hierarchy-bound, in an ugly way. It forces an app life cycle that is alien to me.
    The navigation and data flow between activities and their state is not very obvious. Nothing is obvious. Naming is strange. Using bundles for communicating data between parts of the app is too difficult beyond primitive data types and strings, so I just use static fields now. It's just horrible.
    Things seem to break in unexpected ways. My brain hurts every time I have to look up anything new, nothing is made easy by default. Doing anything worthwhile simply takes a lot of time. Some things are just broken, like list view scroll indexing requiring you to basically to re-create the entire object structure if you want to change the data.
    Maybe I'm just still new at this, but it hasn't clicked with me. My background is in web apps, mostly java back end and fugly front ends.

  16. Re:"Hello World" app by bmxeroh · · Score: 1

    And it's 200+ lines of boilerplate...

    --
    Central Ohio Home Theater Installation - The Theater People
  17. finding-- [Re: nano-degree class ?] by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 2

    Speaking of Google, you might want to use it and search for "finding a sense of humor."

    I typed "finding" in to google, and it autocompleted finding dory, finding nemo, finding neverland, finding carter, and finding bigfoot.

    I'm to lazy to finish typing "..a sense of humor." If google won't autocomplete it for me, I figure I don't need to know anyway.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  18. Quit trying to teach non-programmers to program by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just quit. They don't get it. I was trying to explain loops and variables in a small scripting language to a girl at work who "knows" C#. She acted like I was talking about splitting the atom. She went back to her desk to "review" what I had explained so she could "get it".

    If the girl who "knows" C# can't get a simple scripting language, good luck with average folks. It doesn't work teaching non-programmers to program. Just stop.

    1. Re:Quit trying to teach non-programmers to program by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      I've programmed in assembler, and I have trouble understanding anything written in scripting languages. I think it's because by the time I've got to end.of.ridiculouslyKZF_long.identifier.poettering.factory.subobject.valInt223a I've forgotten what day it is, never mind what the beginning of it was or what problem I'm trying to solve.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  19. Re:$199 per month by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Got straight to the app jail.

  20. Re:nano-degree class ? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    "a nano-degree class"

    This course is actually designed to produce the managers of tomorrow.

  21. Re:"Hello World" app by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    Oh, God! Not Java again!

  22. gold mine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    1. Spend $2000 making super simple "beginner" course materials that look real snazzy
    2. Charge 100,000+ rubes $199/mo for the privelege of looking at it
    3. Laugh all the way to the bank

  23. app permissions by just+another+AC · · Score: 1

    Knowing google the resulting tutorial will result in:

    "Would you like to install the following app: 'Hello World' "

    The app will require the following permissions:
    contacts
    messages
    Read call state
    microphone
    video camera
    storage - all files and folders

    But seriously their tutorial ought to at least touch on security - ie don't mess with it if you don't understand/need it. ...

  24. Re:What is the point? by jimbolauski · · Score: 1

    It hasn't stagnated, just all the easy cool stuff has been done.

    --
    Knowledge = Power
    P= W/t
    t=Money
    Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
  25. Re:$199 per month by normanjd · · Score: 2

    "All of the individual courses that make up the Nanodegree are available online for no charge, Google said, while Udacity offers additional paid services." I THINK the $199 is for Udacity Mentoring and a Cert at the end. Being only a novice in Java and never having programmed for Android (I'm a DBA most days, but program on occasion.), I plan to take the classes for free just for the knowledge and practice... I've taken about a dozen classes for free this way, but agree most who go the free route are not committed. Even when you could get Honor Code certs, I think half the class would drop out by 2nd week, then lost another 5% evey weeks that follows...

  26. Re:What is the point? by rrohbeck · · Score: 1

    Yup. There are so many different styles in C++ that they amount to different dialects or even different domain specific languages. Unless you understand the underpinnings you don't know what's going on so you just copypasta. That's why I really prefer C, but you have to know what you're doing.

  27. That doesn't sound competitive by istartedi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    An industry-specific intro, and $199/mo? You could take intro CS at a community college, pay about the same if it's a 3 month course, and get actual credits towards a degree--a few centidegrees if you will, as opposed to a nanodegree. Community college is orders of magnitude better!

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    1. Re:That doesn't sound competitive by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

      I was pretty excited to see this, for my homeschooler, but, yeah, wow, $199 per month is more than I can swing for our homeschool budget. In States where the money follows the child, this would work out fine, but here we still have to pay the school tax but get none of it in rebate.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re:That doesn't sound competitive by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      but here we still have to pay the school tax but get none of it in rebate.

      That's probably because your state is run by Democrats and their teacher union allies hate home schooling. So like most government programs they take your money and give you nothing, especially if you're (a) white and (b) middle class. Isn't socialism wonderful?

      So you're saying the education system has definitely failed you.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  28. Re: nano-degree class ? by Nunya666 · · Score: 1

    Why the fuck do people on a tech website have absolutely no sense of humor?

    Oh yeah, that's right.

    They do. But you're too lazy to tell us that it was meant to be humorous. Next time, try a wink, an emoticon, or a damn old-school (grin). Since you're new to the Internet, let me help you with a simple concept: communication via text cannot display tone or body language, so it is difficult to recognize sarcasm or humor without some kind of help, which is what smilies and emoticons were designed for.

    And why the fuck do people on a tech website refuse to log in? I'm talking to you, AC. And no, that wasn't meant to be funny.

  29. Android Studio not for beginners by Goonie · · Score: 2
    I teach Android programming at an Australian university.

    For various reasons, it was decided that all engineering students had to learn mobile app development in their first year of the degree. Every single person in the faculty who had any experience with Android told them it was a terrible idea.

    They ultimately ended up getting them to write web apps instead; Javascript web programming is horrible but you can at least have a relatively gentle introduction to programming in it.

    --

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
    --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
  30. Re: nano-degree class ? by bestweasel · · Score: 1

    Why would I pay $200 a month for 0.000000001 of a degree? That doesn't seem like a good deal.

  31. Re:What is the point? by Zaelath · · Score: 1

    I'm reminded of:

    [Unix process talks to its parent process]

    A: I'm bored
    B: Hi bored, I'm dad
    A: I'm \0
    B: Hi
    A: I'm AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
    B: Hi A*segfaults*

  32. Re:nano-degree class ? by infolation · · Score: 1

    That would be a pico-degree class.

  33. Re:Why pay $199 a month???? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    Because you can earn a prestigious nano-degree!

  34. Re:$199 per month by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    There still might be the impression, amongst the people this training is targeting, that you can still strike it rich building apps... that Google is banking on.

    True. Google doesn't have the rich ecosystem that Apple has, where Stanford MBA graduates are writing business plans for that killer app that will turn them into instant venture capitalists.

  35. Re: nano-degree class ? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    Why would I pay $200 a month for 0.000000001 of a degree? That doesn't seem like a good deal.

    it's global warming!

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  36. Re:nano-degree class ? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    "a nano-degree class"

    This course is actually designed to produce the managers of tomorrow.

    In the future, rather than one big manager, everybody will have billions of nanomanagers.

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  37. designed for people with no programming experience by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    "The company has partnered with Udacity to offer a "nanodegree" class designed for people with no programming experience at all. " So aside from the improvement in quality, won't be much difference.

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  38. Re:Why pay $199 a month???? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    Because you can earn a prestigious nano-degree!

    quite the resume builder.

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  39. Re:Boring, clueless, and stuffed full of cash... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    Boring, clueless, nearly irrelevant and stuffed full of cash, Google has become the new Microsoft. Once seen as a 'cool' and 'hip' place to work by many, the evil has set in, the stupid is strong, and it has become painfully clear that the Google is the new Microsoft: doomed to hilarious attempts to create/acquire new tech by throwing wads of cash randomly and hoping something sticks to it. Yes, Google, the innovator: home of the wonderful AdSense, purveyors of quality thermostats, self-driving cars RealSoonNow (tm) (because I always wanted to buy me some top-shelp navigation software from an ad agency), and of course those really neat glasses and a plethora of spiffy here-today-gone-tomorrow web-apps. Not just innovation, but innovation at WEB SCALE.

    google's fine once you realize that everything they produce is always in beta.

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  40. Re:$199 per month by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    By that logic all of the people who fell for "Trump University" are now billionaires.

    well trump is. he says.
    the question is where in the curriculum do you learn about zero sum games.

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  41. Re:$199 per month by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    The bigger question is are you willing to invest in yourself? Paying $199 per month might be worth it. Most people who seek free learning materials on the Internet lack commitment because they don't have any money on the line.

    take the $199 and set up a Roth IRA by buying an index fund. then go out and get a job.

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  42. Re:$199 per month by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    take the $199 and set up a Roth IRA by buying an index fund. then go out and get a job.

    You can only contribute to a Roth IRA from earned income of a job. No job, no contribution. Spending $199 on a new suit for job interviews is better advice.

  43. Re:$199 per month by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    take the $199 and set up a Roth IRA by buying an index fund. then go out and get a job.

    You can only contribute to a Roth IRA from earned income of a job. No job, no contribution. Spending $199 on a new suit for job interviews is better advice.

    huh. gotta admit i didn't know that.

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  44. $199 by DirtyAmish · · Score: 1

    I was cool with it until the cost. I mean, $200? Google wipes its ass with 100 dollar bills.