News

Advanced Course for Java Developers Offered by Google

• By David Ramel
• December 11, 2017

Although Kotlin may be making waves as the fun new kid on the Android development block, Google isn't forgetting about its Java coders, having recently launched an advanced training course targeting the venerable programming language.

"Do you want to learn how to use fragments, add widgets for your app, and fine tune your app's performance?" Google asked. "Make your app available to a diverse user base through localization and accessibility features? Use sensors in your app? How about creating custom views, drawing directly to the screen and running animations?"

Java devs can learn to do those things and more in the new Advanced Android Development course offered by the Google Developers Training team.

It's the next step up for programmers who complete the more basic Android Developer Fundamentals course.

Specifically, the advanced course covers:

• using fragments
• building widgets
• using sensors
• measuring and improving application performance
• localizing your app
• making your app accessible
• adding location, places and maps to your apps
• creating custom views
• drawing to the canvas
• drawing to a SurfaceView off the main thread
• running animations

Those topics are covered in five teaching units:

• Unit 1: Expand the user experience
• Unit 2: Make your apps fast and small
• Unit 3: Make your apps accessible
• Unit 4: Add geo features to your apps
• Unit 5: Advanced graphics and views

Before taking the advanced course, Google said, developers should know how to do the following:

• Install and use Android Studio
• Run apps from Android Studio on both a device and an emulator
• Create and use activities in Android
• Use views to create your app's user interface
• Enable user interaction through click handlers
• Create layouts using the Android Studio layout editor
• Create and use RecyclerViews
• Run tasks in the background
• Save data in Android shared preferences
• Save data in a local SQL database

Although designed as an instructor-led course, Google said the program's materials are published online and are freely available to anyone.

Those materials include tutorials, concept guides, slide decks and example apps available on GitHub.