Which Languages Would You Need To Learn To Develop A Mobile App?

Building an iOS App

Using a Mac you are able to create iOS apps that will run on iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch using Objective-C. The Objective-C is an abstract version of C from Apple. It carries some Smalltalk influences and is used mainly for building Mac and iOS apps.

Because iOS has less fragmentation than Android, it is simpler to for creators to make a one-size-fits-all app for the App Store than to make one for Google Play. Beyond the knowledge of Objective-C some other requirements arise for creating an iOS app, which are – Xcode (a free tool necessary for building an app), Mac that runs OS X 10.7 or later, and an iOS SDK (Software Development Kit).

Objective-C

This is the standard for iOS. The iPhone and all the iOS programming, is all written in Objective-C via Apple’s Xcode IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

The advantages of using Objective-C are these – You get high performance, which means getting to use the extra functions of the phone, like the camera. There is also a growing developer community out there that new app developers are able to reach out to and get help. In addition to that, the coding of your iPhone app built in Objective-C lets the app match up with the ‘feel’ of all of the iOS supported devices.

There are, however, a few difficulties in the Objective-C programming. For instance, this language is not so easy to learn. Additionally, some of the elements of the Xcode are quite different from the typical development process. Lastly, Objective-C will not allow your app to be scaled to fit other platforms like Windows phone or Android phones.

Building an Android App

With Android (open-source OS), the developing of apps is mainly done in Java. You can build your Android apps on Mac or Windows, and buy fairly cheap devices for testing them. As Android continues to totally dominate the market share, there are more and more mobile developers selecting it to get started over iOS. If you have an expertise in Java, you can target several sri lanka jobs for Android development.

Java

Java come in second among the most popular programming languages. It enforces solid OOP (Object Oriented Principles) which are used in today’s moder languages and that include Perl, PHP, Python, and C++.

So to build an Android app, it comes down to learning 2 major skills (languages), which are Android and Java. Java is the actual ‘language’ used in Android. However, the Android side also involves XML for designing the app along with learning all the Android concepts, and then applying those concepts programmatically using Java. After you have learned Java and XML (the XML is quite easy to learn and should actually just be ‘picked up’ as you go about programming your app as opposed to taking time to learn it beforehand like you would Java). What you need to do is learn how you connect the two using the principles of Android.

Eclipse and Android Studio are IDEs (Integrated Development Environments). IDEs are for compiling and running your code with the touch of a button. This is unlike many other applications where it would be necessary to write code to be compiled and then write some type of code to run it. You just have to install Android’s SDK with Eclipse. You could also code Java using other programs besides Eclipse to run your code.

Overall, Java does not give you machine-level control like C does. However, you do have the ability to access and manipulate the most important PC parts such as the graphics, filing system, and sound. You can do this for any fairly sophisticated modern program, and it can run on any type of operating system.

PyBots

Welcome to PyBots.

The idea behind the Pybots project is to allow people to run automated tests for their Python projects, while using Python binaries built from the very latest source code from the Python subversion repository. Read below for more information about the project.

App Development Journey

It was about 2 years ago when I decided to make a jump to mobile app development. At that time I wasn’t sure what I was doing but it felt like right thing to do. I saw a lot of innovation and many new companies coming up with great ideas.

 

So I decided to make a shift from Python web apps to mobile app development. Specifically I started with Android and moved to Objective-C and XCode. It was a steep learning curve, but I’m glad I did it. Not because of the money, but it gives me a sense of satisfaction that I’m staying current with the latest technologies. If you’d like to get an introduction to the subject, contact App Development Australia.

 

One big issue you’ll come across is, that you’ll see the whole industry is moving really fast. It wasn’t completely two years now, and when I thought I understand enough about iOS based apps, Apple announced they’re releasing a new mobile app development language called Swift.

 

But the good news is, with the latest improvements, it will become much more easier to hit the ground running. For someone who is learning iOS app development with Swift, will not have to worry about many low level things as memory management.

 

However I do have to point out that just because you learnt how to make mobile apps, it doesn’t make you a great app entrepreneur. There’s a lot more involved in transitioning from an app to a fully funded business. You’ll have to learn how to run a business as well as app marketing to grow the user base.

 

If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to get in touch with few great mentors who will be able to guide you along with the learning process. Take the initiative to contribute for open-source projects. If you’re completely new, volunteer for mobile app companies – so that you’ll be able to build your skills.

 

Finally, don’t be disappointed at the speed of results. It’s a slow learning process, with so many weekends and nights working on your coding. But that’s a price you’ll have to pay for a much greater reward.

Welcome to Pybots, the Python Community Buildbots

A little history

The Pybots project has a home on Google Code:

The idea behind the Pybots project is to allow people to run automated tests for their Python projects, while using Python binaries built from the very latest source code from the Python subversion repository.

The idea originated from Glyph, of Twisted fame. He sent out a message to the python-dev mailing list (thanks to John J. Lee for bringing this message to my attention), in which he said:

“I would like to propose, although I certainly don’t have time to implement, a program by which Python-using projects could contribute buildslaves which would run their projects’ tests with the latest Python trunk. This would provide two useful incentives: Python code would gain a reputation as generally well-tested (since there is a direct incentive to write tests for your project: get notified when core python changes might break it), and the core developers would have instant feedback when a “small” change breaks more code than it was expected to.”

—Glyph Lefkowitz

Well, Neal Norwitz made this happen by setting up a buildmaster process on one of the servers maintained by the PSF. He graciously allowed me to maintain this buildmaster, and I started by adding a buildslave which runs the Twisted unit tests (in honor of Glyph, who was the originator of this idea) every time a check-in is made in the Python trunk or in the 2.5 branch.

If you are interested in participating in this project, please read these instructions on setting up a Pybots buildslave, take a look at the Pybots FAQ, then send a message to the Pybots mailing list and I will send you a slavename and a password.

Sample buildslave scripts contributed by various people are available in the project’s svn repository, under trunk/slave.

People who would like to set up a Windows buildslave are encouraged to read Sidnei da Silva’s experiences on setting up a Win32 buildslave.