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"We are building a community-written web site which has also been used to create an O'Reilly Cookbook, both about how to build great Android applications. It is full of how-to information along with code snippets that illustrate the ideas presented. It features both how-to's that overlap with the official documentation, and material that goes beyond this to be more tutorial, more in-depth, or explaining "lessons from the trenches": what actually works to get the application functioning well. Unlike most books written by one, two or a few individuals, this one has input from dozens of contributors, who were all able to view and comment on each others' recipes before the book was published. The published version(s) include printed books, eBooks, and other uses"

For a library to be compatible with Android, it can only reference classes available as part of Android and other classes implemented specifically in the library itself.Android Libraries can contain Java classes, resources, and other project information, but not assets. They can reference other libraries and leverage third party JAR files. They have Android manifest files just like regular Android projects. However, they differ from normal Android projects in an important way: they cannot be compiled into their own application packages or deployed onto devices. They can also not be exported as standalone JAR files. Once referenced from an Android project, the library components are incorporated into the Android application that references them at build time and added to the application package. There is no need to declare the component as the library classes are rolled into the APK directly. In terms of compatibility, the Android project must have an API Level higher than or equal to the API Level set in the Android library.

lots of useful example here

Using the Eclipse GUI does not allow one to easily: (a) Add custom build steps (b) Use an automated build system (c) Use build configurations (d) Build the release project with one command.Fortunately, the Android SDK comes equipped with support for Ant.This tutorial will show you how to incorporate an Ant build script into your Android projects,even if you still develop with Eclipse.

shared by Yan Wang in China-android-dev group