Database Users

Financial Application Development

I have barely developed anything since the BASIC days on the C64 and Amiga, and now feel inspired to create some financial applications for the Australian market - such as superannuation projections.
How hard is it to develop? A few standard calculations like you would see on a spreadsheet would work, with some graphing.
Most financial applications I have found are pretty basic and don't account for inflation in rising wages and fees, etc.
I believe I could attract at least a dollar for a well developed application for superannuation alone.

I have installed the Android 2.2 SDK and have no idea where to start. I presume this is some sort of emulated Android device I can test my applications on.
Are there any tutorials on how to get started? What's the development language?
All I need to do is create a simple text interface to input a few parameters to run some complex financial calculations on the back end.
A really sophisticated application would pull live interest rates or other data and enter that in.

Start with this:
developer.android. com/resources/tutorials/ hello-world.html
(take away the spaces, I cant post links yet )
These are all great tutorials that will walk you through the basic processes and applications/layouts. The only issue you will have is when/if you decide to go through the "Tabs View" tutorial, there are a lot of errors in the code, and I have no idea why no one have changed it, but you can PM me for the correct version.
If you want some basics on Java, just do a google search, there are a lot of great tutorials out there for beginning Java. I recommend doing this first, just so you have a good understanding of Java(which is the development language), it will *REALLY* help out. You can incorporate other languages, but for the time being, stick with Java.

Yes, the SDK comes with an emulator so that you can test your programs without having to install them on a real device. In addition to what Jimmy said (and I can't stres highly enough that you should start with the Android Developer's website and tutorials), you can go to Stack Overflow which is a programming Q&A website. People there are generally very helpful, as long as you've shown you've actually put some effort into solving your problem before you posted your question.

Fair enough... So it's basically about learning to programme for Java? How hard would it be, realistically, for someone with no application development experience?

You need a basic grasp of objected oriented design & programming, along with an understanding of the Java language. When it comes to gui aspects & all communication with other apps/data on the device, you have Android, rather than the usual Java class libraries such as awt or swing.
How hard? It's doable, imo, but will depend on aptitude. Start with Java & then add in Android when you feel like more material to get your head around.

So basically getting started requires me to learn application development like on any other platform, in OO and Java. I may as well do a course or something then. Would a few weeks doing some sort of intro course help?

I'm sure an appropriate course could be very helpful. Though I'd steer clear of those short courses claiming to turn anyone into a valuable skilled programmer in only xx weeks, if only because the tutor will probably know less than you on the subject. Better one which makes credible claims regarding its introductory nature. A couple of degree level intro modules on OO or Java should be of help.

Computer Science student with Java experience looking to dev in android

Hey guys, as the title says i study computer science, and i use java and c#.
But its only on desktop platforms.
How much does it differ on an android platform?
Is it really just differences the APIs or is it a completely different approach to programming fundamentals?
Also what is the best way to go about developing? Can i get an SdK that plugs into netbeans or the like??
thanks

I too, study computer science - besides already working in these and related fields. My first impression of Android development is that there are a few paradigm differences that one has to accept.
For example, on desktop platforms, development and execution of applications follows a clear line through your code while on Android (and possibly other mobile platforms I am not currently aware of) your application architecture is based around the concept of activities. Traditional predictable execution like you would know it from a console application has to be emulated as the activities virtually replace the usual entry point (that would be, the main method or function). Anyhow, once you're actually developing anything serious, you'll get used to it pretty fast, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Furthermore, if you're coming from C# and have used WPF or Silverlight, the Android SDK/NDK does indeed look like hell to you. I came to Android and iOS development from C++ (indeed I have gained a lot of experience with C++; that's why I learnt C# and used WPF in a week's time) and at this point, you really start to feel how Android has grown very fast over the past 12 months. Deprecated APIs aside, it seems really hard to me to keep up with the developments so far.
What personally annoys me the most - that is, by far the most - is the Java programming language and it's omnipresence in the system. For an at least somehow experienced C++ programmer, the way concepts are implemented in Java, and this statement is not limited to Android in particular, seems awefully redundant and painful to use. But if you like it that way, you'll be fine. I have set up a template for myself so I can write most of my code in C or a bigger subset of C++ even though the NDK guidelines explicitly oppose it.

You are not limited to Java, you can use C and C++ through the NDK. I use the Eclipse IDE along with the ADT plugin, you could use Netbeans as well.

PhoneGap and Corona - how do they work?

PhoneGap and Corona are both cross platform mobile app development environments, but how do they do what they do?
Well I'm a PhoneGap Build user and I recently DLed the PhoneGap add-ons for my Eclipse dev environment. With PhoneGap you code your app in HTML5, CSS£ and JavaScript and it turns it all into an Android app for you.
I think I've worked out that PhoneGap takes your web pages and just wraps them all up into what is essentially a stand-alone website that acts as an app.
It's a nice idea if you want apps that are purely information, like some of the medical apps for healthcare professionals, but it's not so nice for smoothness and transitions or even interface elements e.g. you can simulate a Tabbed layout but it's not as neat or a smooth as a real Eclipse coded Java-xml Android Tabbed layout.
PhoneGap can repackage your web "app" for iOS, Andoird, BlackBerry, Sybian and webOS! That's one big bonus.
Now does anyone know how Corona works? Seems it's only for iOS and Android and I'm wondering what the underlying structure is. Anyone know?

No one knows?
It's be useful for developers to have insight into this. Afaik Phone gap don't have this info in their docs, I've just worked it out.
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk

Corona is more of a Game Engine I think
It's basically it's own API/SDK/Engine. You code works within that. It looks like it uses lua script but I'm not sure.

Phonegap and other cross platform tools
Hi pizza_alarm
There are basically 3 types of multi-platform approaches:
1) the super-simplistic. These are not really programming at all, but simple tools to auto-generate an app using rss feeds, and other fairly generic settings.
2) browser-hybrid. Most of the serious contenders would fit this category, even though some claim to be in the 3rd. They use html + css to describe page layout, and some (like phonegap) allow full access to any browser-supported scripting, like javascript. At build time, a pre-compiled "player app" is bundles with your web app
3) native compiler. These let you build your app in a intermediate coding language, which then gets recompiled for each platform. Many of these still use the techniques described in item 2.
We have recently published a free comparison between all the serious contenders (items 2 and 3 in my list). Tell us what you think:
(I don't have permission to post the URL - but if you google "triballabs cross platform" you will find it)

Sorry - I meant to add that we use phonegap. One of the bits we like most about it is that you get all the source code, so if you need to enhance the basic "player" app it is very easy to do. Obviously you need to code these native, in Java or Objective-C or whatever your platform calls for

I use Corona since 2013. I have made this game Stronghold. It's easy to use, but there is a lot of limit, no multi threading, few plugin, few quantity of documentation, the app always do imagesheet in 32bits. We have to pay for many things. Like remove the launcher image (actualy it's write corona sdk XD)

XAP/DLL/EXE Hacking Tool (disassembler, decompiler, compiler)

.NET decompiler with support for XAP applications. Allows hackers developers to decompile assemblies and resources in a code editor, make changes and compile the code back to the assembly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
View on GitHub
Features:
Decompile .NET assemblies to C# and allow editing/compiling the high-level code back to CIL
Edit CIL instructions in method bodies
Modify assembly structure
Edit and extract assembly resources
Edit the contents of a XAP by adding, removing or swapping files, or using internal editors for certain resource types.
Integrated editors for text, hex, manifest, resource, XML and XAML.
XAP package manager (compatible with Windows Phone and Silverlight applications) allowing to view and extract XAP contents.
Does laundry, has mastered Italian cuisine, cleans and makes mind-blowjobs when asked kindly and treated right.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some of your skills that could be useful may be:
Blogging: You can write down the results of your testing, your ideas and stuff about .NET Rain the way you see it.
UI/UX design: You don't have to bother with WPF implementation. Photoshop designs are good enough.
C#/WPF programming: You can contribute to the code quality and all user-related features of the application.
C# Reflection mastery: The "core" is in a very alpha state and is full of bugs. The are many planned new features, too.
Donations: They will be wisely spent.
Crowd-funding experience: You can help with raising money to pay for community-hired professionals to write code that will later remain open-source.
Virgin goat blood: For recreational uses.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Not going to lie, I laughed at that last part in the description. Very good work. Thanks for sharing!

I laughed at the git hub title for DLL editing : DLL Deep Throat XD
lol WUT!
Edit : Screen****s ? XD

jepp nice way to word some things , but please let us not use the kind of words here
and yes real good jop

I live to serve the forum rules, so fear not. GitHub is quite liberal, on the other hand
Let me know how do you like it because as of a while I'm experimenting with great new substances.
The effects of which include, but are not limited to, reviving this old project into The Tool for Windows 10.
So I'd love some (a lot of) "pre-"feedback. Try it out. Open issues on GitHub. Help me make it awesome.
Cheers

[SDK] DeepOnionJ Tor integrated DAPP Development Kit

Fork it on Github (deeponion/Android-DeepOnionJ) - Always free and open.
DeepOnion is an open source blockchain project with the aim to bringing privacy and anonymity to anyone that wants it.
We've recently released the DeepOnion Mobile App template. This will enable anyone to rapidly build and deploy a Tor integrated mobile applications that can connect to the DeepOnion network.
This is a key step in opening up our blockchain to new opportunities. Most blockchain based services need to rely on centralised backends that suck information from you before allowing you to use them. This demonstrates our progress in being able produce privacy first, decentralised applications (DApps) and I'm here to invite the XDA community to have a look at what we are doing, let us know what you think and hopefully use our SDK to develop world class DApps.
The project is new and quite raw at the moment, though any Android Dev should be able to see the basics of how the project is integrated with Tor, syncs with the DeepOnion blockchain and provides an interface to interact with it. I'll be updating it over the coming weeks/months to be fully fledged module that you can just add using gradle.
References:
API Docs - BitcoinJ
DeepOnionJ - Up to date fork of BitcoinJ converted to DeepOnion https://github.com/deeponion/deeponionj (deeponion/deeponionj)
Automated Builds DeepOnionJ - https://travis-ci.com/github/deeponion/deeponionj (Travis CI - Test and Deploy with Confidence)
Automated Builds DeepOnion Core - https://travis-ci.com/github/deeponion/deeponion (Travis CI - Test and Deploy with Confidence)
Please contribute to this project if you can -
Java Devs - Go Here -> https://github.com/deeponion/deeponionj (deeponion/deeponionj)
Android Devs - Go Here -> https://github.com/deeponion/Android-DeepOnionJ (deeponion/Android-DeepOnionJ)