Propositions in re: Android Programming (based on recent experience)
- The official documentation is less good than programmers deserve.
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* In particular, the documentation is tailored to two types of programmers: novices just learning, and people who know a lot and need only reference information (that assumes a great deal of background knowledge). An Android programmer has to struggle a lot to move from the first category to the second - there's nothing systematic for her in the middle.
- Searching via Google and landing (most often) on Stack Overflow is inadequate:
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* The problems described, and the solutions offered, are narrow.
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* Solutions do not give enough context to (easily, successfully) generalize beyond the cases they cover.
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* Solutions are partial code, so require too much work to put into practice.
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* It's hard to tell if a solution from date X applies today.