Get started with Android app development

App development in Lesotho is not the talk of the town, even though there might be good reason to not become developers, opportunities surpass the counterfeit reasoning.

A change is made today, by me and you, not by strangers we don't even know. If you want to, let's do it, not tomorrow but now.

I am not an expert with developing applications, and more specifically, Android applications. But developing is like art, the learning is a bit sketchy but once you've gathered the knowledge and tools, the whole process become fun and rewarding.

Here I'm not to tell a story, but guidelines on getting started. Its not gonna be the whole package but this I believe is enough to get you started.

1. You'll need a decent computer, but decent means different things depending on tasks to be done. Running development tools like Android Studio which is an official Development tools for Android apps requires more resources than running minimal softwares like word processors.

Here are minimum specifications of such a computer.
- Screen of any size, but larger is better.
- RAM of at least 4GB, but if you can do better, get a better one.
- A computer with 1.6 GHz will keep the wires going but higher is better.
- A GPU or other extra components will be handy to have but not a necessity.

That's all I can say about the computer; here is my computers specifications if you need to compare.
- Screen size: 14.5"
- RAM: 4GB and I wish I've got a better one
- Processor: Intel Celeron with 1.6 GHz clock speed.

2. Reference material.
Reading books helps a lot but I don't advice you to get started like that. If you prefer that, mix it with videos that'll help.

YouTube is the best place to get free videos to help you get started but the problem is; there is a lot of content to sift through and it requires you time to know which channels are right for your learning style. Anyways good luck with that, but I won't leave you hanging. Here are a select channels you can check out, I'm not paid for this content so whichever channels I portray here are what I've found interesting.

TheNewBostom; If you are a Computer science students, you probably know of Barky Robarts if you do and like him, you probably know this is his channel, he does Android tutorials too.

CodingInFlow: I personally advice you to check this guy out, he has a blog and website besides this channel so you are not just watching, you can read too. Watching videos was enough for me until I was not connected to WiFi.

Android developers: This a website, or an official documentation site about almost everything pertaining android, the problem though is most of the content is not tailored at beginners but a few if not many articles with help.

Stack overflow: this is a site where online communities join to share the knowledge to beginners, you ask a question and get answers, everything is for free but some are not experts, they are beginners like yourself so you are right at home. For miscellaneous errors, make Google your friend and you'll be directed here most of the time.

3. Patience: No better words can explain this, but Rome wasn't built in one day. The final product, whether being after years is a result of small incremental pieces you put each day.

I'm not gonna share everything, or all channels to save mine time and yours too so we continue developing amazing apps.

If this was helpful feel free to say so, I genuinely hope for Lesotho to have people developing apps for betterment of the country.