I just started to learn how to program an Android applications. Coming from a C# world, one thing that bothers me greatly about Android programming is the fact that it takes forever to actually test your app because you have to fire up AVD or wait until the app is installed on your actual device whereas for Winforms/WPF applications, you just hit that debug button and everything loads within split seconds.
My first question is, which is a more preferred way of developing to maximize efficiency? Develop on AVD or an actual device? Are there any suggestions on how I can improve my development speed?
A few things, most people leave the AVD open whilst they are developing so that they don’t have to wait ten minuets every time they open it, however if you have a very slow computer and this is not an option then yes it will talk a while
If you have a faster computer then AVD is likely to be less laggy, but for a completely lag free testing place, use your actual device.
If you are making games you should look into libgdx because it allows you to test your apps on your desktop, then by changing one line, export them as .apk files and test on you android device
For a lot of apps and features within apps you will be left with no option but to test on your real device. Because it can take a while moving the .apk file to the actual device, I would recommend using an on device IDE to make small edits to your code whilst testing certain hardware features such as the volume buttons or the accelerometer. As for on device IDEs I would recommend AIDE – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui&hl=en
On the whole, I would recommend using eclipse with AVD, for the majority of your development on the majority of your apps, but for any apps that you need hardware functions for, I would recommend using an on device IDE (search the play store for android development for more options if you don’t like my recommendation). Most importantly don’t list your app until you have tested it on multiple screen sizes on the AVD, and you have tested it on you physical device