An Android in Every Home - Beginning Android Games - page 10

device; and to package Android applications for their deployment to Google Play. Note that the
SDK can also be integrated into other IDEs, such as NetBeans. There is, however, no official
support for this.

Note Chapter 2 covers how to set up the IDE with the SDK and Eclipse.

The SDK and the ADT plug-in for Eclipse receive constant updates that add new features and
capabilities. It's therefore a good idea to keep them updated.

Along with any good SDK comes extensive documentation. Android's SDK does not fall short in
this area, and it includes a lot of sample applications. You can also find a developer guide and a
full API reference for all the modules of the application framework at
http://developer.android.com/guide/index.html .
In addition to the Android SDK, game developers using OpenGL may want to install and use the
various profilers by Qualcomm, PowerVR, Intel, and NVIDIA. These profilers give significantly
more data about the demands of the game on a device than anything in the Android SDK. We'll
discuss these profilers in greater detail in Chapter 2.

The Developer Community
Part of the success of Android is its developer community, which gathers in various places
around the Web. The most frequented site for developer exchange is the Android Developers
group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers . This is the number one place
to ask questions or seek help when you stumble across a seemingly unsolvable problem. The
group is visited by all sorts of Android developers, from system programmers, to application
developers, to game programmers. Occasionally, the Google engineers responsible for parts
of Android also help out by offering valuable insights. Registration is free, and we highly
recommend that you join this group now! Apart from providing a place for you to ask questions,
it's also a great place to search for previously answered questions and solutions to problems.
So, before asking a question, check whether it has been answered already.

Another source for information and help is Stack Overflow at http://www.stackoverlow.com . You
can search by keywords or browse the latest Android questions by tag.

Every developer community worth its salt has a mascot. Linux has Tux the penguin, GNU has
its . . . well, gnu, and Mozilla Firefox has its trendy Web 2.0 fox. Android is no different, and has
selected a little green robot as its mascot. Figure 1-2 shows you that little devil.