Chapter 28. A Quick Chat Before You Go

We are just about done with our journey. This chapter is just a few ideas and pointers that you might like to look at before rushing off and making your own apps:

• Publishing

• Making your first app

• Carrying on learning

• Thanks

Publishing

You easily know enough to design your own app. You could even just make some modifications and add lots of new features to one of the apps from the book.

I decided not to do a step-by-step guide to publishing on Google's Play store because the steps are not complicated. They are, however, quite in-depth and a little laborious. Most of the steps involve entering personal information and images about you and your app. Such a tutorial would read something like the following:

1. Fill this text box.

2. Now, fill that text box.

3. Upload this image.

4. And so on.

Not much fun or use.

To get started, you just need to visit https://play.google.com/apps/publish and pay a modest fee (around $25) depending on your region's currency. This allows you to publish apps for life.

Note

If you want a checklist for publishing, take a look at the following URL: https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-practices/launch/launch-checklist.html. You will find the process intuitive (if very drawn out).

Making an app!

You could ignore everything else in this chapter if you just put this one thing into practice:

Note

Don't wait until you are an expert before you start making apps!

Start building your dream app, the one with all the features that's going to take Google Play by storm. A simple piece of advice, however, is this: do some planning first! Not too much though, and then get started.

Have some smaller and more easily achievable projects on the sidelines; projects you will be able to show to friends and family and that explore areas of Android that are new to you. If you are confident about these apps, you could upload them to Google Play. If you are worried about how they might be received by reviewers, then make them free and put a note in the description about it being "just a prototype," or something similar.

If your experience is anything like mine, you will find that as you read, study, and build apps, you will discover that your dream app can be improved in many ways and you will...

Carrying on learning

If you feel like you have come a long way, you are right. There is always more to learn, however.

Carrying on reading

You will find that as you make your first app, you suddenly realize that there is a gap in your knowledge that needs to be filled to make some feature come to life. This is normal and guaranteed; don't let it put you off. Think of how to describe the problem and search for the solution on Google.

You might also find that specific classes in a project will grow beyond the practical and maintainable size. This is a sign that there is a better way to structure things and there is probably a ready-made design pattern out there somewhere that will make your life easier.

To pre-empt this almost-inevitability, why not study some patterns right away? One great source is https://proandroiddev.com/kotlin-design-patterns-8e152540ee2c.

GitHub

GitHub allows you to search and browse code that other people have written and see how they have solved problems. This is useful...

My other channels

Please keep in touch:

• www.gamecodeschool.com

• www.facebook.com/gamecodeschool

• www.twitter.com/gamecodeschool

• www.youtube.com/channel/UCY6pRQAXnwviO3dpmV258Ig/videos

• www.linkedin.com/in/gamecodeschool

Goodbye and thank you

I had a lot of fun writing this book. I know that's a cliché, but it's also true. Most importantly though, I hope you managed to take something from it and use it as a stepping stone for your future in programming.

You are perhaps reading this for a bit of fun or the kudos of releasing an app, a stepping stone to a programming job, or maybe you actually will build that app that takes Google Play by storm.

Whatever the case, a big thank you from me for buying this book and I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

I think that everybody has an app inside of them, and all you need do is work hard enough to get it out of you.