Hands-on at OSCON

This year at OSCON we and O’Reilly are co-presenting Android Hands-on. The event is on the evening of Wednesday, July 21 after the Expo-hall reception. Led by Google Android experts, the Hands-on will run from 7:00 pm-10:00 pm, and will be intense, technical, and structured. The goal is that you leave the room with foundation skills for writing interesting code for an open-source stack that runs on a pocket-sized Internet-connected device.

Some specific topics we’ll cover:

• Porting existing C codebases to Android

• Integrating Android apps with RESTful web interfaces

• UI patterns and best practices

Sign-up in advance is required, and is restricted to registered full conference attendees and speakers. Spaces are limited and will be given out on a first-come-first-served basis.

If you’re considering participating, you might want to keep these things in mind:

• Android apps are written in the Java programming language, with the exception of some performance-critical code (typically for games) written in C and C++. If you aren’t familiar with at least one of these languages, you won’t benefit much from the session.

• To prepare, you might want to go to developer.android.com and download the SDK (available for Linux, Mac, and even Windows). Try building the HelloAndroid app and running it on the emulator.

• You might also benefit from attending the Android for Java developers tutorial on Monday and/or Dan Morrill’s Android: The Whats and Wherefores session on Wednesday morning.