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Android Programming for Beginners

Android Programming for Beginners - Fourth Edition

By : John Horton
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Android Programming for Beginners

Android Programming for Beginners

By: John Horton

Overview of this book

Modern Android development has evolved rapidly, with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose becoming the standard tools for building powerful mobile applications. Android Programming for Beginners provides a practical introduction for readers with little or no coding experience. Rather than overwhelming you with theory, the book teaches concepts gradually through hands-on experimentation and small, focused apps that reinforce core programming fundamentals. You will begin by learning Kotlin essentials including variables, loops, functions, lambdas, collections, and object-oriented programming before moving into Android Studio and Jetpack Compose. As your skills grow, you will create interactive projects ranging from UI layouts and games to multimedia and database-driven applications. Along the way, you will explore Android development techniques such as state management, navigation, Material Design, Room databases, Canvas drawing, and responsive layouts. To help future-proof your workflow, each chapter also includes optional AI-assisted programming exercises that show how modern coding tools can support experimentation, accelerate development, and deepen understanding. By the end of the book, you will have built a portfolio of Android apps and gained the confidence to continue toward advanced mobile development projects independently.
Table of Contents (36 chapters)
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1
Part 1: Kotlin & Jetpack Compose Basics
11
Part 2: Data Structures, Kotlin Fundamentals & More Advanced UIs
20
Part 3: Object-Oriented Programming & Building More Advanced Apps
29
Part 4: Vibe Coding & Learning with AI
34
Other Books You May Enjoy
35
Index

Mutable Vs Immutable

In Kotlin, all types can be either modifiable or not. When something is modifiable, the language we can use to describe it can be either 'variable' or mutable (think of 'mutate' or 'change'). We use the keyword var in code to denote a mutable value.

If a type is not variable/mutable/modifiable, we say it is immutable. In Kotlin, we refer to an unchangeable/immutable value in our code as a val.

In summary so far:

  • We use the var keyword to declare a variable of a mutable type
  • We use the val keyword to declare an immutable/unchangeable type

As we progress through the book, there are advantages to this preference for immutability, and there are also many nuances to what mutable and immutable mean in practice, depending on the context.

We now know the changeability criteria for our types, but we haven't seen any types yet.

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Programming languages
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Android Programming for Beginners
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