Thinking Aloud!

Finally I got both svn server and client working on my computer. First I wanted to do it in the "pure" way. So I downloaded and installed the collabnet subversion server and the tortoise svn client . Installation was easy, but setting them up for the first time wasn't that easy.So, I read  the "svn book " and it was great for getting my version controlling fundamentals cleared. But it seemed a bit of hassle to get the server and client to setup properly.

Then I came to know about VisualSVN server and it was like a breeze to install and use! Installation is exactly same as any other windows software and you can do all the repository management right from the GUI. Then I installed svn plugin for Eclipse . This article from IBM is all you need to install the plugin and use svn with Eclipse. Now I have a working repository for my code on my computer and can do the check-ins and check-outs right from Eclipse :)

And as a bonus for my work, I just found out that googlecode website also uses svn for its repository. I have downloaded the code of the demo game that was talking about yesterday and will now start tinkering with it as a final step for starting coding for my own game!

So far so good. I setup the Android SDK , installed Eclipse , added the ADT plugin and tested Hello,Android program without any major issues.

Now, I haven't worked on Java till now. But I know good amount of C and a bit of C++, so am trying to avoid spending a lot of time to learn the basics of Java from a book etc. So, I searched for a simple program for Android that can work as a starting point for me to tweak and learn about the platform and language while getting to a working code as soon as possible.

I found this tutorial on anddev.org forum which was exactly what I was looking for. I created a new project and added the source code. It gives a compilation error on first run, but the solution is given on the same page, so I got the working "bouncing ball" program within a few minutes.

The code is very simple and comments are very helpful for beginners.

I spent next few hours modifying the code in different ways, learning a lot about Java on the way. Finally I got a program which displays a bouncing ball on the screen, a new ball is added after approximately every 10 seconds and all have different speeds. 

Its nothing special and perhaps I would have learned a lot more "theory" if I had spent the same time reading a book. 

But its way more satisfying approach for me :) Now am trying to setup an svn server and client on my computer to keep a better track of code changes. Its not going to be collaborative project anytime soon. But again, its a very practical way to learn about something new and as a bonus I won't have to worry about loosing hours of work because of random file removal etc. This linklooks very promising for the next stage. Will check it out after the svn work.

But yesterday somehow I came up with the idea of a very simple game and then I checked that very few games are available for android as of now. So, suddenly I want to code for Android again.

Now I have a bad reputation of starting to work on new ideas and leaving them after sometime. Thats why I am going to keep a track of my progress this time through my blog. Hopefully this will keep me on track.

Moreover, as I looked on internet for any tutorials to start coding for game development in Android, I couldn't find any good starting point. There is just one article that comes up again and again in search that too with just few hints on how to go about it. Although Google does provide a lengthy documentation with the SDK but for someone like me who wants to start working on the "fun" part as soon as possible, this is not that interesting.

So I will try to document my progress here, if someone else finds it good, nothing better than that, otherwise it will be just a way to keep myself on track!