The purpose of the Amsler Project is to provide a demonstration of replication between a MySQL server and an Android device. With this demonstration you will have the ability to make a change to our demonstration MySQL db and then watch with your own eyes, in real time, as the change magically appears on your Android device.

A common requirement for Android applications is to retrieve information from a remote server. Although implementing simple examples of this are easy enough, more realistic usage is much more difficult. The basic problem is that any application that communicates with a server must either have bullet-proof communication in order to operate, or it must be able to gracefully adapt to network weather. It is not sufficient to merely scold “don’t expect to use this app in the absence of a network connection.” You know as well as we do that neither your sales force nor your customers will tolerate that simple approach. They will say “just cache all the server info on the device and problem solved!” Yes, as easy as that. Oh well…

Initially we envisioned a more “shrink-wrapped” kind of solution. However, as we waded into this swamp we discovered that providing the source code for a single working example would be much more realistic. There are plenty of nuances and variations that you will find in your particular application that we did not encounter. Instead of a bullet-proof app that can deal with any variation of reality that it encounters, we humbly offer source code that works for a limited subset of, and is a decent starting point for further customization.

For more information about how to use this demo or to obtain the source code, please visit us at fyrecloud.com.

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