Customer Reviews

Programming Wireless Devices with the Java(TM) 2 Platform (Micro Edition)

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For a book with programming in the title there is precious little programming in this book...

The editorial review from Book News, Inc has it right: this is a general MIDP information book. If you are after a book about how to program some MIDP specific features you will not find it here. Contrary to the other reader's review there is actually little low level technical information.

No treatment on general programming tips either, for example, why threads are more important in MIDP wireless programming than traditional Java programming. Or how to change your style to be less Object Orientated for speed and memory efficiency (Nokia forum has good tips on these areas).

In short, good review but bad for programming.

So I have been programming with J2ME and DOJA for a while on various Japanese Cellphones. The Japanese cellphones that do support the full MIDP/CLDC combination do not yet support the MIDP 2.0 that this book is covering, but I thought it would be a good idea to check out what I might be able to use when they do, and also try and clear up my own confusion about what precisely the CLDC and MIDP actually are.

Having read the book I think I have a better idea of the distinction between CLDC and MIDP, but still don't feel wonderfully sure. The impression I come away with is that the CLDC is about ensuring a basic level of functionality and the MIDP describes a wider range of functionality such as GUIs and Advanced communications features. This would make sense then if the Japanese Docomo Java framework was CLDC and AU/Vodaphone framework was both CLDC and MIDP.

The book itself was reasonably informative as to the new MIDP 2.0 features, and I was interested to see some good code samples for things like the MIDP Game and Multimedia API - however the code samples don't yet appear available for download. I hope they'll be up soon so I can check them out.

Overall I found the book a little difficult to read - it is kind of more of a reference book - I would imagine myself dipping into it to get things I need, rather than reading through it to get an understanding of J2ME. In some ways the book would almost be better as a more condensed reference work. There are a number of good wireless programming tips such as making all communications run in a separate thread to improve user experience, but these are a little thin on the ground and the book is dominated by working through each detail of each of the APIs. I think is an important book to have if you are working against the MIDP2.0 specification, but I don't think I 'd recommend it to a beginner trying to learn J2ME.

I would imagine that successive iterations of this book will lead to major improvements, such as breaking the book into a Reference work, and a J2ME programming tips guide. I think another couple of years of explosive growth in J2ME wireless devices and programmers will make the latter work possible.

This is NOT the book to learn how to programming in J2ME! You need a great imagination to learn the content of this book, if you have never experienced J2ME before, beacause it contains little code example. In spite of this, the book contains only 7 compileable code example, all others are code segments -- that is you need to do a lot of tedious coding your self to get it running.

This book should more likely be used as a reference manual by experienced J2ME programmer. The structure of this book is clear, so it is easy to retrieve information. But the authors of this book seems have a tendency to fill pages, as they use "Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition" and "Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition" (and other similar) instead of "J2SE" and "J2ME" through out the book, as if readers can't remember an acronym!

If you are looking for a book for learning "how to program with J2ME" you should not choose this one. [...]

The market for small devices (cellphones, PDAs, watches,...) with computational ability, but much less so than a standard PC or laptop is potentially vast. No one disputes this. Its allure is enhanced by there being no overly dominant player hoovering up over 50% of the profits, like Microsoft and Intel collectively in PCs.

Logically, Sun sees growth here and this book is part of its frenetic rollout. It differs from the first edition because of significant upgrades to the 2 standards its describes. The Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) went from version 1 in 1999 to 1.1 in 2002. It added more features that the book describes in detail. Basically, they give a richer compatibility with standard java (J2SE). The other standard, Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) went from version 1 to 2 in 2002. To developers the key additions were APIs for sound and games. In retrospect, MIDP 1 was indeed primitive, to lack these.

Commercially, the MIDP 2 changes in the book may be more important than the CLDC changes. It means that you can now develop games and other applications using sound, at a high enough level of abstraction that they can be run on a broader range of hardware. Well at least that is the idea. I have not done so. But the book's explanation seems logical and thorough enough to make this plausible. Undoubtedly, if you and others follow this path, gaps or insufficiencies will be found, leading to the next increments of the standards.

If you are still clutching the first edition of this book, or any other book that only covers CLDC 1 or MIDP 1, then drop it. Obsolete. Upgrade here.

The focus on programming wireless devices is growing these years. New devices arrive every day, having a huge set of functions - you just want to play a game or get some music on these small gadgets. You could really use a pocket database or another type of application.

Trouble is that these devices are all different. There are at least two different major operating systems on the PDA's and what the OS-situation is for the mobile phones can be difficult to tell. Even having the same operating system is not enough as the hardware platforms are different. This can certainly complicate the life of a developer. Choose your platform, mate!

Unless JAVA is used, of course! The promised land of Code Once, Run Everywhere cannot completely be fullfilled (we know!), but in the world of small devices there now exist a set of standards. These have acronyms such as CLDC and MIDP and are found within the Micro Edition of the JAVA environment (J2ME).

This book describes at a good level the J2ME-platform. The focus is placed mostly on the MIDP libraries which is natural as it is here that the most functions are found. The book covers the available API calls in a good way: Not too detailed, but clear and with a lot of example code. The authors remember to include proper warnings against misuse of some of the library routines - do not overdo the vibrator or flashing background, remember to add commands so that the user can navigate: That sort of advice. And trivial as this may seem, it is still needed, because programming an embedded or wireless device is something completely different than coding a PC-based application.

Between the release of the first edition of the book and this there has been a rapid development within the J2ME area, especially when it comes to the MIDP-platform. A host of new API's has been added to MIDP and this is clearly marked in the book. This is of course helpfull if you have older books and wants to compare. Or if you want to promote the new stuff - else I find it unnecessary.

The book is mostly concerned with the MIDP API and as such does not cover much outside of this scope. You will look in vain for a description of the JSR-82 BlueTooth specifications or the WiFi-protocols. This, I feel, is a weakness because of the growing impact of such network technologies.

The book itself is platform-independent: While it shows many examples it does not show how to compile and deploy an application to a specific wireless device, much less discuss existing platforms. It is an introduction to the CLDC and MIDP API's, not to the development process itself. But the book is important for a good introduction to programming in the "small world" and is a must for the developer. The starting chapters also give a good overview of the position of the J2ME environment and its components and should be required reading for any JAVA evangelist and architect.

The focus on programming wireless devices is growing these years. New devices arrive every day, having a huge set of functions - you just want to play a game or get some music on these small gadgets. You could really use a pocket database or another type of application.

Trouble is that these devices are all different. There are at least two different major operating systems on the PDA's and what the OS-situation is for the mobile phones can be difficult to tell. Even having the same operating system is not enough as the hardware platforms are different. This can certainly complicate the life of a developer. Choose your platform, mate!

Unless JAVA is used, of course! The promised land of Code Once, Run Everywhere cannot completely be fullfilled (we know!), but in the world of small devices there now exist a set of standards. These have acronyms such as CLDC and MIDP and are found within the Micro Edition of the JAVA environment (J2ME).

This book describes at a good level the J2ME-platform. The focus is placed mostly on the MIDP libraries which is natural as it is here that the most functions are found. The book covers the available API calls in a good way: Not too detailed, but clear and with a lot of example code. The authors remember to include proper warnings against misuse of some of the library routines - do not overdo the vibrator or flashing background, remember to add commands so that the user can navigate: That sort of advice. And trivial as this may seem, it is still needed, because programming an embedded or wireless device is something completely different than coding a PC-based application.

Between the release of the first edition of the book and this there has been a rapid development within the J2ME area, especially when it comes to the MIDP-platform. A host of new API's has been added to MIDP and this is clearly marked in the book. This is of course helpfull if you have older books and wants to compare. Or if you want to promote the new stuff - else I find it unnecessary.

The book is mostly concerned with the MIDP API and as such does not cover much outside of this scope. You will look in vain for a description of the JSR-82 BlueTooth specifications or the WiFi-protocols. This, I feel, is a weakness because of the growing impact of such network technologies.

The book itself is platform-independent: While it shows many examples it does not show how to compile and deploy an application to a specific wireless device, much less discuss existing platforms. It is an introduction to the CLDC and MIDP API's, not to the development process itself. But the book is important for a good introduction to programming in the "small world" and is a must for the developer. The starting chapters also give a good overview of the position of the J2ME environment and its components and should be required reading for any JAVA evangelist and architect.

I read this book as an experienced Java programmer but with no experience of the J2ME platform. Other reviewers here have said that it is not an introduction to J2ME in itself, but my feeling is that with a good knowledge of Java it can provide you with the tools to get started in Java programming for mobile devices. Others may disagree.

The positive side of this book is its excellent discussion of the MIDP API's, rigorous without being unreadable, and with many good examples. I would count it the definitive reference for the new MIDP 2.0 API's particularly. This covers such features as;
Titles and Tickers,
Item Commands and Custom Items,
Full screen mode,
The entire Game API,
A Sound API,
Shared Record Stores,
Several new network protocols,
Secure networking,
Event driven application launch,
plus much more.

All good fun stuff.

This is a book you would have sitting on your desk as you work. It's not a fat book - about 350 plus appendices - but it manages to be fairly comprehensive all the same.

I do have one or two downers on it though.
It reads very much like a book written by a committee. (In fact six authors are listed.) The style changes somewhat from chapter to chapter, and it could be a little more structured. The first six chapters are largely given over the the history and process of standards development which is not strictly relevant to the business of programming. This is not bad in itself, but you might plough through a lot of it just not being sure where the meat was.
There is no discussion of software tools at all - this relates to the charge of it not being a beginner's J2ME book. I think it would have benefitted from a few pointers for people new to this area.

All in all though, a good buy for an experienced programmer looking for a comprehensive reference to J2ME API's.

It is a realy good book for beginner. I like this book.

In short, this an excellent J2ME reference book, but not very good for average programmers. You will be disappointed if you are looking for a run-of-the-mill programmer's recipe book. This is not a software development oriented book.

Look for it only if you need accurate J2ME reference or if you are intested in an overview which goes into detail for implementation aspects, that is, if you need to understand the
underlying support of CLDC/MIDP by a device. This means the average programmer will be disappointed but a software architect will find it quite useful. Make sure you buy the 2nd edition.

The book is written by people who are actually involved in drafting the J2ME specifications.
The text closely follows the CLDC and MIDP 2.0 specifications in every aspect. It can be defined as a summary of the MIDP and CLDC specifications.

By the way other APIs such as CDC, WMA, File API, etc, are not covered by the book.

This is the second in the series of the J2ME platform books, and has comprehensive coverage of the CLDC 1.1 and MIDP 2.0 API sets.
The book spends a lot of time covering the specifications and has deep and detailed information on all areas. There is plenty of background on the formation of the CLDC and MIDP expert groups and the scope of the specifications contained within each.

It's not a surprise that this book has such detailed knowledge, all the authors were active members of the recent J2ME and MIDP specifications.

There are plenty of code snippets showing examples of how to use many of the APIs with the new MIDP 2.0 Graphics libraries given considerable pages.

The changes from MIDP 1.0 are well highlighted with a little "new duke" icon identifying the new sections. When the MIDP 2.0 changes are not a completely new package, there is a section at the end of the chapter summarising the new MIDP 2.0 features that are available.

If you are serious about developing J2ME applications for the new MIDP 2.0 compliant devices this is a must have book. It covers the ground thoroughly, with great clarity and not too many wasted words.

This is not a book to learn J2ME/MIDP programming, and definitely not for beginner Java programmers, but for those experienced developers it's a breath of fresh air as this book caters well for that group.