Dateline 8-19-2016

I'm not day four into my Nanodegree program for learning the basic of Android App Development. Of the 60 something courses I've taken over the past year this has, by far, been the best experience I've had with online education to date.

First off, this class was developed by Google, so the classes are high quality and the instructors have definite answers when it comes to best practices. Most of the instructors the other courses seem to know their stuff but there have been inconsistencies in how things work. One instructor will say one thing while the next instructor will say another. It's as if I'm learning their way and not the real way, even though their way works.

Last night I finished my first lesson in this Nanodegree program. The assignment was to make a simple one-page app. Since I've already built apps that are way more advance I wasn't expecting much out of this lesson. I thought I would just fly right through this assignment without learning a thing.

Though I did fly through this assignment, completing the assignment 12 days earlier than the suggested self-paced recommendation, I also learned a few very important things that I'm surprised were covered in any part of the more advanced lessons from the past. Not only that but the way the school delves out their information, I now have a deeper understanding of what I already know because they deal with the why's and not just the how's of getting a code to work.

My first mini assignment was to make a Birthday Card App so I decided to make one for my dog. I'm not sure when her birthday is but a found a funny image of a similar looking dog so I decided to run with it. 

Here's what I came up with...

It's not interactive at all but it's the very first thing we had to make to get us comfortable with the app building software. This was just something to share amongst the classmates along with an introduction. 

The first real assignment was to build a single page app that it a little more advanced. We were told to make a virtual business card for a fictional physical store. I decided to make up a coffee shop from Coney Island and this is what I came up with...

Unlike the other apps that I've built in the past, this one is actually scalable to fit a tablet or any other device. In all the other apps I've built the success of the scaling depended on how an attribute worked in general by default. This is a major piece of information that I'm amazed hasn't even been mentioned in past classes.

There is one more funny thing about this ad. I stole ever color on the page using the eye dropper tool on the top image. It wasn't until I was all done that I realized that I ended up with almost the same exact color pallet of TheWickerBreaker.com and the funnier thing is, this isn't the first time I've accidentally ended up with this color scheme without even noticing. 

Oh well, now I'm on to the next lesson with a suggested due date of September 13th. I'm willing to bet I'll have it done by the end of the weekend. As always, I'll keep you posted if I do. Until then....

Talk to you tomorrow,

- The Wicker Breaker