The Student Room Group

App development and design

I was wondering how do I go about learning app development and design. I have a strong urge to learn more about this area. I have many ideas for app development and I want to turn these ideas into reality. How do I go about learning this? Should I be self-taught( if so which books, websites) or should I attend a part time course? I appreciate your input. My level of skills at the moment are zero.
How much coding experience do you have?
Reply 2
Zero but I am very willing to learn
Reply 3
Original post by RussianQuestion
How much coding experience do you have?


zero but willing to learn and I am a quick learner in general
Right now android app development is trending while IOS is quite stagnant so I'd advise doing android app development right now. A major language is java however there's a new language that I can't quite remember the name of, however its not super used. In the grand scheme of things java isn't too hard to learn and is a commonly taught CS language so there's plenty of online tutorials. I'd advise self teaching yourself, there are plenty of books to choose from so just go with whatever seems to suit your learning style. Moreover there are also plenty of free YouTube tutorials and cheap udemy courses if you're willing to pay a little. But I'd advise jumping in, learning the basics then just building apps and learning as you go. Once you've built a portfolio of a few apps you can easily freelance from there :smile:
Reply 5
Original post by red3000hp
Right now android app development is trending while IOS is quite stagnant so I'd advise doing android app development right now. A major language is java however there's a new language that I can't quite remember the name of, however its not super used. In the grand scheme of things java isn't too hard to learn and is a commonly taught CS language so there's plenty of online tutorials. I'd advise self teaching yourself, there are plenty of books to choose from so just go with whatever seems to suit your learning style. Moreover there are also plenty of free YouTube tutorials and cheap udemy courses if you're willing to pay a little. But I'd advise jumping in, learning the basics then just building apps and learning as you go. Once you've built a portfolio of a few apps you can easily freelance from there :smile:


okay, thank you for your help can I start right away with Java or do I need to learn some other languages prior to this? Will I need high level maths to progress?
Original post by red3000hp
Right now android app development is trending while IOS is quite stagnant so I'd advise doing android app development right now. A major language is java however there's a new language that I can't quite remember the name of, however its not super used. In the grand scheme of things java isn't too hard to learn and is a commonly taught CS language so there's plenty of online tutorials. I'd advise self teaching yourself, there are plenty of books to choose from so just go with whatever seems to suit your learning style. Moreover there are also plenty of free YouTube tutorials and cheap udemy courses if you're willing to pay a little. But I'd advise jumping in, learning the basics then just building apps and learning as you go. Once you've built a portfolio of a few apps you can easily freelance from there :smile:


The name of the other language is Kotlin :smile:. I've just completed some work in Android Studio, programmed in Java. If you have any more specific questions, let me know.
Original post by Sarahanna
okay, thank you for your help can I start right away with Java or do I need to learn some other languages prior to this? Will I need high level maths to progress?


Java is a commonly taught first language, its not as easy as say python to learn, however it has much more benefit in the long run. And I doubt you'll come across any high level maths for a while :smile:
Original post by Sarahanna
I was wondering how do I go about learning app development and design. I have a strong urge to learn more about this area. I have many ideas for app development and I want to turn these ideas into reality. How do I go about learning this? Should I be self-taught( if so which books, websites) or should I attend a part time course? I appreciate your input. My level of skills at the moment are zero.


I wouldn't recommend python, although it's easy to learn, simply because it's nothing like the more commonly used and more complex languages such as Java and C , and after doing python for like 3 years (for GCSE) I'm finding it extremely difficult to give up my python habits and code in java (which is the language I'm codeing my A Level coursework in). As users above have mentioned I think you should just jump in with java. :smile:
(edited 5 years ago)
Original post by Sarahanna
okay, thank you for your help can I start right away with Java or do I need to learn some other languages prior to this? Will I need high level maths to progress?

You don't need any maths beyond basic arithmetic to be able to write apps. Maths would be useful if you wanted to write an app which is doing a lot of complex calculations - but if you're doing something fairly non-maths-based (e.g. social network, music app, chat app, photo gallery, e-commerce, snake game, the list goes on..) then you'll probably never do anything beyond primary-school-level maths.

If you want to learn about writing Android apps, have a look at Google's free online courses for Android development:

These start out assuming zero previous experience/knowledge, so you should be able to jump right in, although you will need to download and install some tools to get started.
(edited 5 years ago)

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