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Android Programming for Beginners

You're reading from   Android Programming for Beginners Build in-depth, full-featured Android apps starting from zero programming experience

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Product type Paperback
Published in Apr 2021
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781800563438
Length 742 pages
Edition 3rd Edition
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Author (1):
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John Horton John Horton
Author Profile Icon John Horton
John Horton
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Table of Contents (30) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Chapter 1: Beginning Android and Java 2. Chapter 2: First Contact: Java, XML, and the UI Designer FREE CHAPTER 3. Chapter 3: Exploring Android Studio and the Project Structure 4. Chapter 4: Getting Started with Layouts and Material Design 5. Chapter 5: Beautiful Layouts with CardView and ScrollView 6. Chapter 6: The Android Lifecycle 7. Chapter 7: Java Variables, Operators, and Expressions 8. Chapter 8: Java Decisions and Loops 9. Chapter 9: Learning Java Methods 10. Chapter 10: Object-Oriented Programming 11. Chapter 11: More Object-Oriented Programming 12. Chapter 12: The Stack, the Heap, and the Garbage Collector 13. Chapter 13: Anonymous Classes – Bringing Android Widgets to Life 14. Chapter 14: Android Dialog Windows 15. Chapter 15: Arrays, Maps, and Random Numbers 16. Chapter 16: Adapters and Recyclers 17. Chapter 17: Data Persistence and Sharing 18. Chapter 18: Localization 19. Chapter 19: Animations and Interpolations 20. Chapter 20: Drawing Graphics 21. Chapter 21: Threads and Starting the Live Drawing App 22. Chapter 22: Particle Systems and Handling Screen Touches 23. Chapter 23: Supporting Different Versions of Android, Sound Effects, and Spinner Widget 24. Chapter 24: Design Patterns, Multiple Layouts, and Fragments 25. Chapter 25: Building a Simple Image Gallery App 26. Chapter 26: Advanced UI with Navigation Drawer and Fragment 27. Chapter 27: Android Databases 28. Chapter 28: A Quick Chat before You Go 29. Other Books You May Enjoy

Polymorphism

We already know that polymorphism means different forms. But what does it mean to us?

Boiled down to its simplest:

Any subclass can be used as part of the code that uses the super class.

This means we can write code that is simpler and easier to understand, and easier to change.

Also, we can write code for the super class and rely on the fact that no matter how many times it is sub-classed, within certain parameters, the code will still work. Let's discuss an example.

Suppose we want to use polymorphism to help to write a zoo management app. We will probably want to have a method such as feed. We will probably want to pass a reference to the animal to be fed into the feed method. This might seem like we need to write a feed method for each and every type of Animal.

However, we can write polymorphic methods with polymorphic return types and arguments:

Animal feed(Animal animalToFeed){
   // Feed any animal here
   ...
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