Android Makers FR recap

11 Apr 2017

Android Makers FR recap

3 minute read

After organizing Droidcon Paris for several year, the organizers decided to move on and experiment with a new format. This didn’t just result in a well organized conference, but also in a fresh new vibe whilst still feeling familiar.

In this post I’d like to share some general themes, my personal highlights and all of the slides I could gather from socials.

Details matter

Make sure your app doesn't launch with a blank screen

Building a world class app doesn’t just require good engineering practices, but you literally have to handle details on every front.

My key takeaways:

  • Learn and optimize your app launch time:adb shell am start -W <packagename>/. <activityname>
  • Never share a file directly via an intent, always copy it first
  • Prefer https:// as the scheme for direct links
  • Hard-coded encryption keys can be easily found in byte code: grep for Ljavax/crypto
  • API design is basically designing future regrets

Productivity

The Android testing pyramid

As projects get more complex, it becomes crucial (for your own sanity) to have the right engineering practices in place. Try and leverage your continuous integration to automatically build, test and statically analyze your pull requests before merging.

My key takeaways:

  • Testability must be taken into account from project start
  • Many git conflicts can be resolved automatically with proper tooling
  • Use pre launch reports before going to production
  • Naming things is hard, yet super important

Programming languages

Challenging the traditional way of app development has gotten a new spark thanks to Kotlin and the rise of other cross platform tools. There is definitely no silver bullet yet, but it’s good to see the community stay open minded.

My key takeaways:

  • Every Android developer hates WebViews
  • With incremental builds, Kotlin compiles as fast as Java
  • React native is JavaScript rendered to a native UI(not ready for primetime yet, wait for 1.0 version)
  • Any Android dev can develop for Android Things (runs Activities!)

Organizer recap

Relive the conference through the organizers eyes, they did a great job at summarizing each day. Clicking each moment will expand more details.

Conference slides

While the conference organizers will publish all slides very soon, I can image that quite a few people are already looking for a sneak preview. Hence I bundled everything I could already gather from socials.

Credits

The awesome Android makers organizing team

Thanks to the entire Android Makers team for organizing a great conference and to all sponsors for supporting. Hope to see you all next year!

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