Originally published on 11/06/2016

During the past two years I’d managed to find several useful tools & resources, which I use over and over again during my every day work. There is no doubt, that almost all of them are well known to everyone, but I feel that I have to share them with you despite that fact. This is a mixture between information & tutorial resources, useful tools for networking and other small things that can make your developer’s life easier.

Stackoverflow

If that thing is down, for whatever reason, I’m 100% sure that the developer’s society will be devastated. This single source contains probably the biggest dataset of questions and answers on different programming topics. Talking in numbers, currently there are more than 13 000 000 questions posted on Stackoverflow and more than 930 000 of them are related to Android.

Stackoverflow is the first place, where I seek help and advice regarding the issues I face during the day. Time is money! Thus there is no reason for you to go and reinvent the wheel. If you are stuck with something, just check if someone else had faced that issue before. The chances are high that you will find what you are looking for. If not, you can always post a question and wait for the good guys browsing the site to help you.

Advice: ALWAYS, ALWAYS search for a solution before posting a question there!!! Otherwise, you will have to deal with some down voting and hatred. Which you deserve, if you not follow my advice!

Google

If Stackoverflow failed to help you, which I doubt, you can always search the web for other sources and tutorials. There are hundreds or even thousands of people who share knowledge (like me) through forums, ebooks, blogs (like me), etc. And guess which is the best tool for searching the web, which can help you find the best sources on a specific topic! Surprise, surprise! It’s Google!

Fiddler & Chrome Advanced REST Client

The main idea behind these two tools is pretty much the same. They help you to execute REST requests to a server. And we all know that chances are low to develop an application without any Internet communication. The first one needs installation on your actual machine, while the second is a Chrome application. Now, they provide different secondary functionality and Chrome Advanced REST Client is definitely a lighter version of Fiddler. But I use both of them sparingly and they do their job really well. Both are free of course.

Genymotion

Genymotion is an alternative to the ‘good’ old Android Emulator which comes with Android Studio and Eclipse. Why not just using the normal AVD? Because I don’t like it! Things have probably changed since my last use of the AVD, but I still remember the time when it was really really slooooow. I had to wait long time just to boot the virtual device and some of it’s features were crappy. Then I found Genymotion. It’s basic features are free and they are more than enough for you to develop great applications and run them on multiple predefined virtual devices. And the booting time is fast!!!

If you like facts and numbers here is something for you:

Fragmented

If you like podcasts and if you like Android, then this is one of the best possible combinations! Fragmented is really fun, with lots of interesting episodes so far and the guys @donnfelker and @kaushikgopal always try to invite guests who have something to say! I’ve gone through episodes with guests like Jake Wharton and Mark Allison and believe me, they know a thing or two about Android!

Feel free to share, comment & give your opinion on the topic!