I\'ve been working on the android platform for 8 years now. Every time I
leave it for some time I come back feeling like a lost lamb. Mobile
moves just as fast if not faster than web. Because there aren\'t a lot
of frameworks, native things can be deprecated or enhanced fairly swift.
When I left Seattle I got a job doing application support, but there
wasn\'t really any mobile work to it\...there actually wasn\'t mobile at
all (0.5%). This time period seems to have set me back in staying up to
date. I was keeping up with things happening on the play store and
deprecated packages but I wasn\'t building (which is what I love).
I can\'t sit here and blame that job for this regression though. I took
the risky position and it\'s up to me to keep my skills fresh even when
I\'m not actively using them. Those 6 months I used to do more security
things and got my security+ which isn\'t really a bad trade off, but how
do I get back? How do I get back to not feeling like I\'m not always
googling first and implementing second? I\'m not sure anyone has a real
answer for this.
What I will try to do is build more outside of work. I recently got a
review on the first app I ever made (Filler Counter) and honestly I was
never going to update it because I didn\'t see a point. I think I\'m
going to update that and all my other apps now. I might not have the
code for everything but I can recreate a lot of things from the UI (they
are very simple). By the end of summer I should be using Navgraphs, all
things androidx, and kotlin without a second thought. I find I learn the
best when building things for myself vs solely copying codelabs. So, all
that being said wish me luck.
*P.S. I really hate that Google didn\'t even try a virtual Google I/O
this year*