Today, three weeks from the end of my Java course, I am finally working my way through the Android training tools.
I am moved to reflect that some people assume technology will solve all their problems, but that I am not one of them.
To me, technology embodies and concentrates all the qualities of the human congener — it has wonderful potential, but anything may go wrong with it. Even though I know that, I am always disturbed when I find subtle (or gross) discrepancies between published descriptions and actual function, even though my working model of the universe takes it as a premise that such discrepancies abound.
Here (http://developer.android.com/training/basics/firstapp/creating-project.html), on day 1 of my studies, I find that the New Android App window in Eclipse is supposed to contain a "Build SDK" item. Well, there is no New Android App window in my copy of Eclipse — there is a New Android Application window. And on it there is no "Build SDK" item. There are more items than are shown in the tutorial, and one of them ("Compile With") is probably equivalent, but the literal item named for me to look for is missing. The tutorial has not been kept current. I can tell now that, at some point in the future, it is going to lead me into outright error.
Well, my working model of the universe takes that as a premise, so who am I to complain? Causality proceeds as if following hashes in a hash table — you yourself can't usually tell where a given hash will take you just by inspection, but it does take you there, unfailingly. The problem is that when you are given a roadmap showing a subtly different hash than the one in the roadmap, there is no telling how far off you may end up.
But I am proceeding anyway, in the state of mind I call "black optimism": I expect the worst, but am confident I'll get through it even so.