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hpr_transcripts/hpr1975.txt

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+Episode: 1975
+Title: HPR1975: Interview With An Android App Developer
+Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1975/hpr1975.mp3
+Transcribed: 2025-10-18 12:43:44
+
+---
+
+This is HPR episode 1975 entitled, Internew with Android Developer.
+It is hosted by SIGFLOPS and is about 14 minutes long.
+The summer is SIGFLOPS here and HolyCruid it turns out my brother-in-law is an Android Developer.
+This episode of HPR is brought to you by an Honesthost.com.
+Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
+That's HPR15.
+Better web hosting that's Honest and Fair at An Honesthost.com.
+Hi everyone, we're here with Dillon, Android Developer, Dillon, whose name last name,
+showing me nameless.
+How are you doing, Dillon?
+Doing all right.
+So you're into Android development for your job, right?
+Yeah, I've been doing it, I guess professionally for about three years and maybe four years
+total.
+Oh my goodness, it's been four years.
+Yeah, I guess so.
+The thing I like to ask people when they come to any of these interviews is how you
+got into computers in the first place.
+Oh man, I did, I was not that into computers until I took a class in college where we basically
+did like microcontroller programming and like breadboard prototyping and so you had to
+take just like a microchip, put it on a breadboard, like build the power supply for it and all
+the peripheral things you wanted it to do and then write C programs for it.
+Oh okay.
+So that was like a lot of diving into data sheets to learn how things worked and sort
+of like really going out of the hood and figuring stuff out and that's where I kind of think
+that the moment I really fell in love with it was when I learned how to kind of make it
+talk to like a PC, like a microcontroller and then it was like, oh geez, I could do like
+anything now.
+Through serial, I take it.
+Yeah, that's cool.
+That was just kind of one of those like things that was always magic to me and then something
+I could do it and everything seemed possible.
+Yeah, yeah, for me it was the parallel port that I used to interface things with which
+it's really empowering because the computer is connected to it and with the computer you
+can do pretty much anything, right?
+And so it wasn't the basic stamp, you said it was in C so it can't be the basic stamp.
+Yeah, so it was actually just like a microchip like pick.
+That was a pick?
+Yep.
+And then we had like a, I can't remember the basically a C compiler.
+Keele probably or something like that.
+I can't remember, it was like, I think it was like an IDE as well that our professor is
+something he got for us.
+Okay, cool.
+He just had that and I'm like a five-wire thing that like load your programs on and.
+So did you start programming commuters then or I guess, yeah, that was like my first
+real.
+Cool.
+So you were introduced to the C.
+Yep.
+That's awesome.
+I think I'd taken like some CUC plus plus class before but never really, wasn't like super
+relevant to what I was studying at the time, was doing mechanical engineering and it seemed
+like I'll never use programming.
+Yeah.
+Yeah, I'm very much a software, I'm a software junkie.
+So I'm not so much with the hardware but I still think hardware is rather interesting.
+So you've, I've heard through the grapevine that you won this Red Bull Challenge or is it
+a...
+Yeah, so it was like, I think that was about five years ago as well.
+Oh yeah.
+I didn't like that at all.
+Chees time flies.
+I know, but yeah, that was fun.
+It was like a hackathon put on by Red Bull, where I basically had 72 hours to do a build
+based around some theme that you didn't learn until like the day of the build.
+And so I had a team of four people and just sort of like drank a lot of caffeine and
+worked a lot.
+There you go.
+Yeah.
+So what got you into Android development?
+Um, so I'm trying to think, it was sort of like, I really like doing like a microcontroller
+programming but it was always like, oh, it would be kind of cool if I had like a, you
+know, like a touch screen input or like a screen or like, oh, now I want to connect to
+the internet.
+And that was like, essentially, I was like, what a smartphone was was all that stuff packaged
+for you.
+Yeah.
+And so, yeah, I had a friend that was doing iPhone and Android development and I didn't
+own a, a Mac at the time, so you couldn't do iPhone programming really without one or
+without jumping through some hoops, so I decided to like, bought an Android phone so that
+I could program it and then just sort of slowly learn by hacking on it and make it tons
+of mistakes.
+Cool.
+Cool.
+That's awesome.
+So, um, do you use an IDE like a clips or something like that or the Android studio?
+Android studio.
+Okay.
+That's pretty wicked.
+Yeah, I started started out in the clips and then my first like professional job they
+were using, like the very first version of Android studio.
+I see.
+Um.
+So, uh, do you use, uh, the curiosity, your development cycle, your iterations, you know,
+testing iterations?
+Do you use the emulator or do you use actual hardware?
+I generally, uh, we'll have, uh, generally use hardware, um, I think the emulators weigh
+better than it used to be and put it in my head, it's not, even, so, so yeah, I don't
+do that.
+Um, but yeah, so I basically have like, I use a Nexus 5, I just like almost always just
+use that sort of stock Android and then usually have like some, um, older Samsung's lying
+around because they'll generally have some like extra button or like extra feature that
+like normal Android phones don't have and that'll eventually throw you off.
+So, uh, usually have like, yeah, an old, like, uh, 4.0 version or something of Android running
+on like an old slow Samsung phone and sort of use that as my baseline or poor performance
+phone.
+Yeah, I see.
+Uh-huh.
+Yeah, I, um, I'm yet to, I, uh, my father has, he's bought my S2, my outgouts, the S2,
+so I'm gonna buy it back from him and he's that, right now he's, um, a Note 3 and, uh,
+the Samsung S6 Edge Plus for development, notice.
+And one thing I've noticed is, um, the Note 3 is fine without having a precision, um,
+marker I guess in GLSL where you, you need a precision like, this floating points are
+high-productions, something like that.
+So that was one thing.
+Um, I'm finding a lot, a lot of my apps don't work on that when you have in your hand
+right now.
+Interesting.
+Get CS6 Edge Plus.
+So, um, now Zant, cause like, are you, you're doing a lot of stuff, not in Javaland, right?
+Yep.
+I do very little in Javaland, so you, you do a lot in Javaland, right?
+Yeah, that's basically it.
+I have a little experience like one of the, company I worked for has used like, sort of
+like, um, the J and I before to like, so you had a few different like methods and see
+that would collect stuff from like this, just have files of whatever device you're running
+on.
+And eventually we ported that to, uh, to Javla, cause like, I don't think we needed, I
+don't know if there actually was a performance gain there, it was sort of a legacy thing that
+was around and like...
+It's, the job is so fast right now, it's pretty negligible.
+The performance increase when it comes to running something in native.
+And I'm not sure like, who, like, we kept running in Delay, I'd get like, SEG files
+randomly.
+Yeah.
+All those like, it seems like never really be reproducible, it was like, uh, this is like
+more of a hassle than it's worth, so.
+Yeah, see, and C++ programs are a little bit difficult to debug, especially when they're
+on a device, do you just use, uh, log, like the log for debugging, or do you use anything
+else?
+Yeah, usually it is just like, yeah, log.i, or whatever, I'm like, and uh...
+Not that V, I think is...
+For debug, really.
+Yeah, so...
+Yeah, I mostly do that, and that'll kind of help you hunt stuff down, but...
+So, what are you currently doing, and if you maybe haven't any, uh, no closer, there's
+no disclosure agreement here, but...
+Oh no, I must.
+Currently I work for a company that's, I write an Android SDK for them, and one thing
+that they figured out how to do is sort of like, maybe a heat transfer model, or
+around, like, Android phones, different models of Android phones, and so we can, um, essentially
+use the, uh, the thermocouple inside of the battery in the phone to predict the ambient
+temperature around the phone, so you can watch.
+That's, that's neat.
+Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty hardcore, um, the...
+So you essentially, like, every model of phone, you need to run through this, like, calibration
+cycle, and find some sort of, like, heat transfer constants, but then, uh, yeah, we essentially
+have a, like, run the SDK on any device, it'll, like, call to our servers to get a calibration
+file if you have one, if we go to one, and then, it'll, uh, yeah, run that and run temperature
+predictions, um, and it's sort of, like, remotely controllable, like, you can configure some
+different things remotely, like, uh, so it's, yeah, it's like a customer, so to have, like,
+as a portal that they can, you know, this is, like, how many times I want to take temperature
+per hour, or, you know, I want to turn it off completely, or think things like that.
+It's interesting.
+And that, that was, yeah, that's been a good, uh, yeah, I'd never written, like, a, a
+distributable, like, SDK before, so that was, like, a learning experience for how to
+do that on Android.
+Yes.
+Also, you know, just, like, keeping, like, we're, trying to keep really good documentation
+for once, uh, since, like, someone actually has to, like, understand all this, the public
+API for it.
+Yeah.
+So that, that's been all, like, sort of stuff I've never had to do before, because I've
+basically, like, for a while, I was writing, just, uh, we're doing a dev shop, so you're,
+yeah.
+A lot of that time, that documentation doesn't need to be there, because it's sort of,
+like, quickly spinning off and off for some more.
+Yeah.
+Oh, I forget this one.
+The noise here.
+It's actually, uh, Christmas Eve.
+Christmas Eve.
+Yeah.
+Christmas Eve.
+Yeah.
+So everyone's being married.
+Everyone's being married.
+You know, Robert.
+So you, you, uh, you know, let me ask about it, you had a bug, and I did.
+A customer facing piece of code.
+Yep.
+Like, a ship day, uh, our, one of the first versions of our SDK out to customer, we did
+a lot of testing.
+They did a lot of testing.
+And didn't, uh, bug didn't pop up, but essentially I had a, uh, had a bug in my, uh,
+SQLite upgrade code that, uh, missing a space character, a classic story, and, uh, I,
+I do not, don't have like, uh, didn't have automated testing set up.
+So it was like a code path I never ran, and sort of, like, neglected to think about
+running this.
+And, uh, yeah, the upgrade path got run and crashed on several devices, and, uh,
+cheese.
+It was, uh, yeah, it was, it was a good learning experience, something I want to do again,
+learn some things from it.
+Do you do a lot of testing, or, yeah, it's like mostly manual, like, I'm sort of just,
+like, wrapping my head around doing, like, unit testing, and stuff for Android.
+I think in general, sort of what I've learned is that, uh, it's, but a lot of it is like
+an architecture decision, uh, to do, like, using, like, dependency injection to make,
+like, easily testable and swappable classes and stuff like that.
+So, uh, that's kind of my next task for this SDK in the next, like, month or so will
+be to sort of, see how much test coverage we can get, and, you know, there's, like, places
+where that's super useful, like, uh, in, like, a database, uh, so kind of your crud code
+for database, like, it'd be really nice to have that testable, because I've, yeah, certainly
+introduced really, like, bugs that I have not found for a long time, because I decided
+to start, like, sorting, uh, sorting results by, like, ascending orders of descending
+orders, something like that, and not, like, changing the rest of the code to accommodate
+that. So, um, so, um, so, um, so what was your, what was the first Android program
+that you wrote? Oh, I tried to do some, like, my first project was, uh, just, like, a
+fun thing, but I wanted to make, like, a, I just got it, been getting into running at
+the time, and wanted to make, like, a running tracker app. So, okay. I was essentially
+like, you need to be able to sort of, like, uh, you know, start GPS, like, record
+your GPS coordinates, um, and sort of keep those in some sort of collection, and then sort
+of save your route. So, you could, you could see I'm like a Google map when you were
+done, like, the route that you would run, um, and then collect the statistics, like,
+time and, uh, you know, average speed, stuff like that, um, and then sort of, so, yeah,
+it was just kind of, uh, a fun project, but, yeah, I learned a lot of, like, UI stuff,
+learned how to, like, work with some of the, like, the Android sensor APIs, um, and, uh,
+you know, just, like, learned GPS, as it turns out, can sometimes be a little bit difficult
+to debug because, like, yeah, you want to be, like, moving around, like, get a new, make
+sure your location is changing, and, uh, your power issues that can crop up if you're,
+like, using it too heavily or using, you know, more accuracy than you really need, kind
+of. Um, and this was, like, yeah, a few years ago, so this was before, like, Google
+Play Services, uh, location, uh, APIs, which is, uh, once you get it set up is, like, I
+think, in general, a little easier to use, and can save you some power, but, okay.
+All right, cool. I think, uh, I think we, uh, go back to our Christmas, uh, do these.
+Sounds good. Well, thanks for having me on. Oh, yeah. Of course. You take care.
+All right. Later. Bye-bye.
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