Customer Reviews

Advanced Palm Programming: Developing Real-World Applications (With CD-ROM)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Frequent questions I encounter while developing for the Palm platform include, how do I work with floating point numbers? How do I do graphics? How do I add an appointment or address book entry into the Palm database? If you've gone past the basics of Palm programming and have these kinds of questions, "Advanced Palm Programming" is for you.

For example, when I wrote a calculator program, I wish I had the chapter on floating point conversion and formatting. The PalmOS is designed to be compact and efficient and therefore, doesn't support floating point very well. Mann and Rischpater present routines with 15 digit precision, localization, and left and right alignment.

Regarding graphics, the authors discuss bitmaps, and panning and zooming techniques. If you're looking for sample video games, you'll have to look elsewhere. The authors frame their discussion with mapping software.

The chapter on reading from and writing to Palm's native databases (address, datebook, todo, memo) is interesting. While some developers have done this by studying Palm's source code (like myself), the authors offer an alternative API they call a property interface. This API hides the internal details, simplifies the task, and generally saves time. If Palm changes the underlying database schema, the API will isolate those changes and prevent your code from breaking. But you will have to depend on the authors to update their API, or know enough of the internals to update it yourself. I haven't worked with the API enough to render a verdict. There is one other way to write to Palm's address, datebook, and todo database that the authors did not mention: use the vCalendar and vCard format. These public formats, however, are no help when it comes to reading the databases.

The book covers many other advanced topics so be sure to check out the table of contents. Most of the examples require Palm OS 3.1, Codewarrior 6, and the Palm SDK 3.5. Unix and the gcc toolchain are not used in this book. Nevertheless, the writing is clear, as are the examples, so developers on Unix can still benefit.

This book puts meat on the bones of the Palm OS. The topics cover the standard Palm OS information and put it in the context of practical applications. It goes well beyond the "Hello World" basics and delves into issues that the experienced Palm programmer needs to know. For example, the book includes a section on progress dialogs in the context of a sample application. It explains how to use the Palm OS Progress Manager and gives sample code. But, and here where the book really shines, it points out the weaknesses in the Palm implementation (works only with Palm OS 3.0 or newer, etc.) and offers a much better alternative, again with sample code. An experienced programmer can copy and paste the code to implement advanced Palm OS functions in hours rather than days.

Being disappointed from "Palm Database Programming" und "Palm Programming - the developer's guide" which were all useful at the beginning but very fast became extremely superficial (Half of Palm database programming describes the use of Satellite forms and the configuration of SQL!!) I discovered that this book really rocks.

It helps you with the solutions to concrete real world problems you encounter and guides you around mistakes every programmer made at some time ;)

It has not only complete, easily readable sourcecode but also describes the structuring of an application for a certain task from the abstract problem up - and this for every single chapter. That is, you have 8 completely functioning applications and not only 8 stages of one boring one (as in O'reilly's ;).

Extremely helpful was the java application to build Palm databases on the desktop which saved me a lot of time.

If you know the API already and C is your language - this book is for you.

I don't think this book can help you develop read-world applications. There are not enough contents for database and networking which are the most important and useful for enterprise applications.

The better chapter would be the 'App-centric Networking'. It mentions some web connection with the Palm. But this book still have no discussion with the HotSync, a important part of Palm development.

Most of the contents just help you develop stand-alone programs. I agree that you can read the SDK documentations for more information, or the Palm OS Programming Bible.

If you find this book for less than $12 USD somewhere, it's probably worth the money just to look at some more code samples. However, the examples in this book are buggy, and are hard to isolate and recycle into your own projects.

If you have the Neil Rhodes book from O'Reilly and/or the PalmOS Programming Bible from Wiley, then don't bother with this title at all.

As someone who does Wireless Palm programming for a living, this is generally the first book I look at for programming hints... Having said that, this book is not a beginners book, it does not explain all topics, but covers some of the more obscure features you can get involved with. If you want to go tromping around in the database of the native apps, you will find some tidbits that are not easily discovered otherwise. But you should still be prepared to read the source code for those apps too.

I am a professional Palm developer, and I currently have four books on Palm programming at my desk. This is by far the worst, and the least informative. I'm not sure what is in this that would let it claim to be 'advanced'. Everything covered in this book was summarily covered in Neil Rhodes' book. I always open it up, trying to find something useful, but it's just not in there. Don't waste your money. I've given it two stars, just in case you don't have Rhodes' book, you might find some small value in it.

First, this book had one of the worst indexes I've ever seen! There is no (or hardly any) indentation, so subtopics swim with topics.

Second, the book overall went deeply into some obscure topics (writing your own GPS software), but didn't present many topics deeply which is what I was seeking. If you would like to know how to do trig on your Palm or a few other weird topics, this is the book for you. As for me, I need something that takes all Palm programming to the next level.

This book is an excellent tool for experienced programmers learning Palm OS and wanting to get real code running fast. It is also a great reference for programmers that know the Palm OS. I particularly like the book is organized, it is easy to find examples that solve problems at hand.

This book is a weak attempt at explaining Palm OS programming. Save your money. Here is a summary of the book.

"Read the SDK. Hey look at these code samples. Details are boring. So here are some more code samples. You want details go read the SDK."

Poorly written and horribly organized.

I'm still looking for a good Palm OS book.