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Learning Java by Building Android  Games

You're reading from   Learning Java by Building Android Games Learn Java and Android from scratch by building six exciting games

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Product type Paperback
Published in Aug 2018
Publisher
ISBN-13 9781788839150
Length 774 pages
Edition 2nd 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 (28) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Java, Android and Game Development FREE CHAPTER 2. Java: First Contact 3. Variables, Operators and Expressions 4. Structuring Code with Java Methods 5. The Android Canvas Class – Drawing to the Screen 6. Repeating Blocks of Code with Loops 7. Making Decisions with Java If, Else and Switch 8. Object-Oriented Programming 9. The Game Engine, Threads, and The Game Loop 10. Coding the Bat and Ball 11. Collisions, Sound Effects and Supporting Different Versions of Android 12. Handling Lots of Data with Arrays 13. Bitmap Graphics and Measuring Time 14. The Stack, the Heap, and the Garbage Collector 15. Android Localization -Hola! 16. Collections, Generics and Enumerations 17. Manipulating Bitmaps and Coding the Snake class 18. Introduction to Design Patterns and much more! 19. Listening with the Observer Pattern, Multitouch and Building a Particle System 20. More Patterns, a Scrolling Background and Building the Player's ship 21. Completing the Scrolling Shooter Game 22. Exploring More Patterns and Planning the Platformer Project 23. The Singleton Pattern, Java HashMap, Storing Bitmaps Efficiently and Designing Levels 24. Sprite-sheet animations, Controllable Player and Parallax Scrolling Backgrounds 25. Intelligent Platforms and Advanced Collision Detection 26. What next? Index

Managing and understanding memory

In Chapter 4, Structuring Code with Java Methods we learned a bit about references. Here is a quick recap

Note

… known as a reference type. They quite simply refer to a place in memory where storage of the variable begins but the reference type itself does not define a specific amount of memory used. The reason for this is straightforward.

We don't always know how much data will be needed to be stored in it until the program is executed.

We can think of Strings and other reference types as continually expanding and contracting storage boxes. So, won't one of these String reference types bump into another variable eventually?

As we are thinking about the device's memory as a huge warehouse full of racks of labeled storage boxes, then you can think of the DVM as a super-efficient forklift truck driver that puts the distinct types of storage boxes in the most appropriate places.

And if it becomes necessary, the DVM will quickly move stuff...

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