Tadas Subonis started coding roughly when he was thirteen. Since then, he has programmed with PHP, JavaScript, Python, C++, and Java (the language in which he has probably written the most code). He took up Android relatively recently--around 2014 (after a few false starts in 2012).
However, he soon learned that Android lacks decent support for asynchronous programming (Async Task was/is a joke) while more reckless languages, such as JavaScript, had Promises for a long time. Furthermore, Java's standard library was lacking decent support for functional programming primitives (map, filter), but that was easily fixable with libraries such as Guava.
This led Tadas to search for a library that would help him achieve a Promise-like functionality and interface. It didn't take long until he found ReactiveX and its family of implementations (including RxJava) that handle streams in Reactive fashion. It wasn't exactly the flow of Promise-like systems but, soon enough, he realized that it's something even more powerful.
Since then, he has been using RxJava (and RxKotlin) for his daily Android programming. The quality of the code (the lack of bugs, readability, and maintainability) has improved ten-fold. Giving a quick crash-free experience for the users of your application is a must these days when competition for user attention on app marketplaces is getting fiercer and fiercer.
First of all, I would like to thank Packt for the opportunity to write this book. Also, I would like to thank their editorial team for the amazing support they gave me while working on this book. Finally, I would like to thank my significant other, Aušrinė, who had the patience to endure my unavailable evenings while I was working on this book.