Welcome to the README file of my research assignment of Android Application development.
My project can be found in this article.
For this research assignment, I wanted to do something different than just making a plain application. I chose to write a research about annotation processing. With a focus on the annotation processor that Room uses to generate files that handle database interaction in SQLite.
The research consists of two parts:
-
The research documents consisting of 5 chapters that explain a lot of theoretical concepts using code snippets
-
Two demo applications, one made with Room and one made with a self-written annotation processor
You learn a lot by creating applications using concepts, but you learn even more when you try to explain the concepts you learned during the journey. Thats why I chose the methodology of of keep the demo simple and focussing on a wel written documentation that covers the technologies used in the demo applications.
I started with the topic I already knew, creating an android application with navigation and fragments that uses Room as a database. Then I wanted to create the same application without Room, but without writing the SQLite implementation myself. That's why I needed an annotation processor.
To create the customized annotation processor, I needed to learn how to work with SQLite, so I followed the Android documentation tutorial for this.
Then I could do some research on how to create an annotation processor and generate source files. It is possible to create source files without any template engine, but I found it more handy to work with templates.
Template engine selection included listing the possible options, and then choosing the best option. I would have chosen Thymeleaf if it was possible to generate plain text files with it, but sadly enough it is optimize for generating xml code. That's why I chose Apache Velocity which is a super easy template engine I fell in love with during the process of using it.
Now I had to bring everything I learned together and recreate the same demo application with the annotation processor.
The final step was to document everything and explain the different parts of the research in detail.
Looking back, I'm very proud on the project I made. Its maybe not the most glamourous with the best UI, but in my opinion, the beauty can be found in understanding hard topics.
I'm really proud I was able to create a annotation processor that makes life easier. Just being able to add annotations in you code and have a working database interaction is for me personally why I love Java (and Kotlin).
But I'm also happy that I now finally understand what these annotations really do and what happens in the background. I how that people that are interested and read my research think the same.
The project may be a bit different than your standard application, but I tried my best to meet the requirements, while still keeping the demo clean and easily understandable.
That's why I would score my project a 9/10.