Spotlight: Coding Green Robots

Though many of us are Android fans, a few of us have taken things a step further and have  actually done some coding for the platform. This is all well and good, but what about those of us who wish to learn?

As someone’s who’s in that latter camp (if anything, to learn more about that of which I write), I find that I learn a lot better from videos than reading endless blocks of text. While this is no substitute for a proper programming education, a number of self-education options are available, namely Coding Green Robots.

Coding Green Robots is a web series broadcasted biweekly by a couple developers from Toronto, ON. Though only two episodes are available at the moment, they give a run-through of a number of basic concepts that a user would need to know to develop for Android. Included are open-source projects and a number of tutorial notes for users to read and keep around for reference: these are invaluable resources in a quest from programming-illiterate to writing basic apps. They also offer a number of tutorials and a developer discussion section on their website.

Again, these sites can’t replace a formal programming education, but they can try; I don’t see anything wrong with trying to give users who don’t have money (or time) to drop on formal courses a taste of what they can experience with Android development. If nothing else, knowing how applications work and are made can give you a greater appreciation for the work that developers put into their creations; knowing a thing or two about the hard work devs do may give you an incentive to to toss them a couple bucks for a premium version of their app.

Happy coding!

Coding Green Robots on UStream
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Matt Demers is Droid Life’s app guy, but as you can see, he likes to mix things up from time to time. You can find him on Twitter, or contact him via e-mail.