PalmOS Programming
I guess it would have to happen sooner or later. Once you get tired of just "tinkering" around with the Palm, you'd want to try to see if you can write something for it - perhaps that app you wished the Palm had but was not included in the standard package, or perhaps you want to make loads of money (yeah right!).
Whatever the case, here are some links plus my ever-witty comments on each of them.
PalmOS Programming Books
| Book Title | My Personal Comments (if any) |
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This book is very good for beginners. The only downside of this title is that it has several spelling mistakes as well as filename errors in the examples. Thus if you are completely new to any sort of programming, you will get lost while trying to follow the examples. On the whole, this book is rather comprehensive for beginners, although it concentrates a little too much on CodeWarrior ("The Official Platform for PalmOS Programming"). That does not mean that you can't transpose what you learnt in the book into other tools like GCC (Gnu C Compiler). The accompanying CD not only has Codewarrior on it (demo copy of course), but also other 3rd party shareware and freeware tools. |
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As the title says, it's a Bible. It's one of the most handy reference any PalmOS programmer can have in his library. This title was Sold Out in the initial weeks it was launched. I couldn't get it anywhere locally in Singapore! Like the book above, the CD also comes with a demo copy of CodeWarrior and other 3rd party tools as well as source code in the book. |
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I didn't buy this book. Some time ago the whole book was available FOR FREE as a PDF file. I downloaded that and printed out all 600+ pages of it on my office printer :) After reading through a couple of chapters, I found that I was rapidly getting lost. This book was written long before others were, and it was, for a time, the only programming book available. Anyway I haven't touched those 600+ pages I printed since 1999... |
PalmOS Programming Websites
| Website | Remarks |
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This is of course, the definitive site where all programmers would go to. This site is run by Palm Inc, so who else know Palms better than Palm Inc.? :) This site has great and updated links to other programming resources out there, including those non-official programming tools such as PDAToolBox, Waba etc. Also on this web site are some tutorials in PDF format which you can download and learn how to write simple HELLO WORLD programs. |
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Waba is a java-like Virtual Machine for the PalmOS. For those of us who are more "into" Java, this provides an early introduction of Java on the PalmOS platform. The only catch is, you don't use normal Java classes like those found in Sun's Java SDK. You need to use the classes provided by @wabasoft. Waba maps all "normal" Java classes to its own classes so you can still write almost-normal Java classes and the Waba VM will run them fine. |
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Didn't take Sun Microsystems too long to get into the Java act on the PalmOS platform. KVM is Sun's VM for the Palm. Beats me what K stands for though. However they are a little bit too late, more people are writing Java programs with Waba than with Sun's Java. Also, comments from the field proclaim that Waba's VM is faster than Sun's. |
