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I used to be pretty keen on computers back in the 80s and 90s but I was never much of a programmer (mostly various flavours of BASIC and something call E on the Amiga).
I rather fancy trying a bit of coding and have had a tinker with the beginners course on Google's Android Developer site. Basically just rudimentary Kotlin with variables and functions; I got on alright playing with Kotlin Playground and it didn't seem so different to procedural BASIC.
However, lesson 2 involves firing up Android Studio, and my, what a monster, I feel massively out of my depth despite the elementary level.
I know that folk will recommend other languages (Python seems particularly liked) but if I persevere with Kotlin would I be better continuing down the Google route and learning Kotlin and Android site by side (eventually writing so basic Apps might be fun), or would it be more sensible to look at the free version of Kotlin's own beginners' course and becoming more familiar with the language before tackling Android (or perhaps just realising that I'm in way over my head!).
Any thoughts from anyone who's tried?
Not tried (my coding is limited to python stuff on Linux for personal consumption) but what's your target or are you just playing?
Oh definitely just playing, I know that I'll never be very good, although it would be nice to actually manage a simple App
I'm just trying to decide whether it would make more sense to become a bit more comfortable with Kotlin before trying to deal with the Android platform - the Google lessons pretty much start off with Kotlin and Android hand in hand.
I'm not massively familiar with Kotlin, but even it's website mentions Android an awful lot, which makes me think you'll find most Kotlin resources to be reasonably tied to Android. It's probably worth looking for more resources on the language as a standalone thing, but I expect you'll find mostly Android-y references.
And I can quite understand finding Android to be a bit overwhelming. I've spent the past year or so working on Android (albeit more from a platform perspective than app-level) and there's still plenty to learn!
This said I think if you're wedded to the idea of making an app you might as well just hold your nose and jump in. Personally I find it much easier to learn if I have a goal or application in mind, and "make an Android app" would be a good motivator for me.
I've done a limited amount of work on Android apps. I'm not sure it's something I would recommend to somebody who just wants to learn a bit of programming (languages like python, javascript, ruby, php, etc, are easier to get started with), but if the goal is to build Android apps, I'd say dive right in. Android Studio will be an essential part of that.