Android Programming: The Big Nerd
Ranch Guide
by Bill Phillips, Chris Stewart, Brian Hardy and Kristin
Marsicano
Copyright © 2015 Big Nerd Ranch, LLC.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by
copyright, and permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited
reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding
permissions, contact
Big Nerd Ranch, LLC.
200 Arizona Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
(770) 817-6373
http://www.bignerdranch.com/
book-comments@bignerdranch.com
The 10-gallon hat with propeller logo is a trademark of Big Nerd Ranch, Inc.
Exclusive worldwide distribution of the English edition of this book by
Pearson Technology Group
800 East 96th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46240 USA
http://www.informit.com
The authors and publisher have taken care in writing and printing this book but make no
expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or
omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with
or arising out of the use of the information or programs contained herein.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are
claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and the publisher was
aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters or in
all capitals.
Print ISBN-10 0134171454
Print ISBN-13 978-0134171456
Second edition, first printing, August 2015
Release K.2.1.1
2
3
Dedication
To God, or to whatever it is that you personally have faith in. Reader, I hope that
you find the many explanations in this book useful. Please don't ask me how they
got here, though. I once thought that I was responsible. Fortunately for you, I
was wrong.
— B.P.
To my dad, David, for teaching me the value of hard work. To my mom, Lisa, for
pushing me to always do the right thing.
— C.S.
For Donovan. May he live a life filled with activities and know when to use
fragments.
— B.H.
To my dad, Dave Vadas, for inspiring and encouraging me to pursue a career in
computing. And to my mom, Joan Vadas, for cheering me on through all the ups
and downs (and for reminding me that watching an episode of The Golden Girls
always makes things better).
— K.M.
4
Acknowledgments
We feel a bit sheepish having our names on the cover of this book. The truth is that without an
army of collaborators, this book could never have happened. We owe them all a debt of
gratitude.
Our co-instructors and members of our Android development team, Andrew Lunsford,
Bolot Kerimbaev, Brian Gardner, David Greenhalgh, Jason Atwood, Josh Skeen, Kurt
Nelson, Matt Compton, Paul Turner, and Sean Farrell. We thank them for their patience in
teaching work-in-progress material, as well as their suggestions and corrections. If we
could give ourselves additional brains to do with as we pleased, we would not. We
would just put the new brains in a big pile, and share them with our colleagues. We trust
them at least as much as we trust our own selves.
Special thanks to Sean Farrell for graciously updating many screen shots as Android
Studio evolved, and to Matt Compton for publishing all of our sample apps to the Google
Play Store.
Kar Loong Wong and Zack Simon, members of Big Nerd Ranch's amazing design team.
Kar made BeatBox look intimidating and polished, and provided advice and imagery for
the material design chapter. Zack took time out of his schedule to design MockWalker for
us. Kar and Zack's design abilities seem like unknowable superpowers to us. We thank
them, and bid them fond returns to their home planet.
Our technical reviewers, Frank Robles and Roy Kravitz, who helped us find and fix
flaws.
Thanks to Aaron Hillegass. Aaron’s faith in people is one of the great and terrifying forces
of nature. Without it, we would never have had the opportunity to write this book, nor
would we ever have completed it. (He also gave us money, which was very friendly of
him.)
Our editor, Elizabeth Holaday, who many times saved us from going down rabbit holes.
She kept our writing focused on what our readers actually care about and spared you all
from confusing, boring, and irrelevant detours. Thank you, Liz, for being organized and
patient, and for being a constant supportive presence, even though you live many miles
away.
Ellie Volckhausen, who designed our cover.
Simone Payment, our copy-editor, who found and smoothed rough spots.
Chris Loper at IntelligentEnglish.com, who designed and produced the print book and the
EPUB and Kindle versions. His DocBook toolchain made life much easier, too.
Finally, thanks to our students. We wish that we had room to thank every single student who
gave us a correction or opinion on the book as it was shaping up. It is your curiosity we have
worked to satisfy, your confusions we have worked to clarify. Thank you.
5
