Customer Reviews

Palm OS Cobalt Programming From the Ground Up, Second Edition (From the Ground Up)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As an experienced programmer, I wanted a book that wouldn't waste my time teaching me C/C++ or explaining event loops in lots of detail. I also wanted comparison between Garnet and Cobalt versions of the Palm OS.

This book does provide some of that information.

It does not provide valid examples. The first code examples are in chapter 3. They claim to build on the Draw application from chapter 2, and assume the reader has details about the event loop from chapter 2. Chapter 2, however, contains neither code nor a description of the event loop used in Palm software. There is no reference to the Draw application in the index, either.

After studying sample code from Palm's web site and trying lots of things in the development environment, I was able to get something that worked.

Other examples mix Garnet and Cobalt veriable types so they wouldn't compile on either system or contain other errors that prevent them from compiling.

A less-experienced programmer would probably give up on page 25 where the text tells the reader to modify a resource file that does not exist. Such a programmer would probably rate the book with one star.

I have not completed the book yet although I intend to do so. I felt compelled to warn other readers about its inaccuracies.

A CD or web site (with working examples!) would be useful to copy and paste tutorial information instead of requiring lots of typing.

50% of book contents are code listing, even resource files in xml. The explanation of the code and techniques are inexistent and the code comments are 50% of the total code lines but they are irrelevant, a representative example (page 183):

// CH 7. Display the time
displayTime();

They present one program example that evolves accross the book, and they print the COMPLETE code of the modified files in every chapter. When you take out the unnecesary repetitions the book loses an important percentage of the pages.

I live in Europe and the shipping charges are similar to the cost of the book, if I lived in the USA, I will return the book at once.

Since Palm has cancelled the release of Cobalt, and there appears to be no devices that will ever come out with this OS loaded on them, this book is only useful for those folks that like learning how to program vaporware. Like a book for making custom levels in Duke Nukem Forever.

Excellent book ordered before printing and arrived weeks before expected.
Great service, thanks.