A few thoughts on me vs Android Dev.

I wrote this to my blog just now and wondered if anyone had any tips, thoughts or encouragment for me :)

*"There's one thing that still baffles me"

"What's that?"

"Everything"

If anyone knows where this quote comes from, a kudos from me. :)

It came to my mind suddenly came to my mind as I was about to sit down to learn a little bit more Android. I'm a little under the weather today so it probably wasn't the best time but I wanted to do some catching up while I've got the chance.

I've created 2 projects already. The Fun Fact application, interactive story application and now, I'm finishing following on a course to create a Weather forecasting application.

Now, my brain doesn't work the best and the fastest at the best of times, but every so often I find myself thinking... there's one thing that still baffles me about coding in Android... and that is pretty much everything.

And it is not because I'm not understanding anything as I am going. The teaching I'm getting is as always bang on point. I'm just not retaining everything I am learning. I'm not getting the time I need to practice. And I'm not getting the practice because I'm finding too many reasons not too. But the 2 main reasons are I'm doing client work that takes priority or getting over the fear barrier to even get started.

I sit, I learn, I understand (or sometimes I don't), I sleep on it. And then it's gone! Gone until I look it up in the book or article or online video I'm following, which of course switches on the lightbulb in my brain.

There is so much to practice and so little time.

How am I going to fit in,

• Classes
• Member Variables
• Getters/Setters
• DialogFragments
• Exceptions
• Okhttp:
• Toast
• String Resource
• Network connection Checks

And I think the answer lies in simply finding the time to practice. Knowing where and how to look up the answers that I need and putting them into practice like a seasoned developer.

When I left the last project I was working on, I managed to plug in a piece of data that Android grabbed from a JSON file and display it to the screen. But it was a little incomplete as my brain had completely down-tooled and it was time for a break.

So... I came back to it another day and some things started to make a little more sense. And then the cycle goes on. I sit, I learn etc

So with a bit of study time I was able to catch up on my work and understand what I was doing. I am capable. and I believe I am just as capable as anyone else. I just need that bit of extra time to catch up with new information, new situations.

If nothing else I'm confident I'll get over all my challenges because I've got the drive and determination to do it. And hopefully one day if someone asks me what is baffling me, Android development won't be so high in my thoughts. :)*

What do you think?