August 1999
Wanted
Programmers
needed for Hand Held Devices
"The Palm Pilot has
a commanding lead but wait, the CE is making a run, uh oh, the CE is
out of motivation, or programmers that is.........."
"I want color and sound and the CE has both and the Palm does
not......yet.
In the meantime, now I know why programmers prefer the Pilot." cmw
As an end user, I get
caught in the middle of being a slave to the programmer. I am using a Palm V
with medical software from www.auto-doc.com. I would much rather be
using a program optimized to take advantage of the CE benefits like color, sound
and different screen sizes. I find no programs at all, specific to my profession
written for the CE. Yes, there are general medical programs for the CE, but they
are in my opinion grossly lacking in quality. For example, none of the half
dozen that I have purchased or evaluated, enable a user to append text to a
simple form needed by an insurance company or a state form. Most programs have
their underlying designs, composed by physicians for their specialty. While
there is nothing wrong with this, the fact is that many doctors can't see the
forest through the trees. If they could, they would be better
communicators. Most physicians, have difficulty communicating with their
patients and this is inherent in the application.
Microsoft has made it so difficult for developers to create applications,
jumping through such hoops with the need to compile a different application for different processors and different screen
sizes. The difficulty becomes exponential. Alas, the "pocket-book,"
not the "pocket-pc," dictates you become a Palm developer!
Requirements:
1. Palm Pilot: CodeWarrior and Win95/98
2. Microsoft Windows CE: you will need the following
farrago,
contingent on operating system and hardware requirements:
Summary of what you will need for Pilot: CodeWarrior
Summary of what you will need for CE:
In order to develop applications for the HP palmtop and handheld PCs, you will
first need the Windows
CE Platform SDK. The Windows CE Platform SDK is designed to provide tools
for building applications for Windows CE.
The Windows CE Platform SDK
does not include the cross-compilers needed for developing binaries that run on
Windows CE-based devices. These compilers are included in the Windows CE Toolkit
for the Microsoft Visual C++® development system available from Microsoft, or in
a C/C++ development environment that supports Windows CE.
In order to
develop for the HP 360/620/660LX palmtop PCs (Windows CE 2.0 SH3 processor) and
HP Jornada 820 handheld PC (Windows CE 3.0, StrongArm processor), you will also
need either of the following tools :
- Windows CE
Toolkit for Visual C++ 6.0 The Microsoft® Windows® CE Toolkit for Visual
C++® 6.0 delivers the tools programmers need to easily build applications for
Windows CE devices. Apply your knowledge of MFC and the Win32 API in building
Windows CE-based applications while utilizing the award winning Visual Studio®
IDE. The toolkit delivers Windows CE technology such as emulation, for building
Windows CE-based applications on the desktop without a device and remote tools
for optimizing and debugging applications natively on a Windows CE-based device.
Corporations utilizing Windows CE devices can deploy custom solutions utilizing
Visual C++ programming expertise.
- Windows CE
Toolkit for Visual Basic 6.0The Microsoft® Windows® CE Toolkit for Visual
Basic® 6.0 delivers the tools programmers need to easily build solutions
Handheld PCs and custom platforms powered by Windows CE. The toolkit utilizes
the Visual Basic 6.0 development environment, making it easy for developers to
apply their knowledge of Visual Basic to the Windows CE platform. The toolkit
includes Windows CE specific technology such as emulation, for building Windows
CE applications on the desktop without a target device and remote tools for optimizing and debugging applications natively on a Handheld PC. As corporations
adopt Windows CE-based devices, they can easily deploy custom solutions
utilizing Visual Basic programming expertise.
- Windows CE
Toolkit for Visual J++ 1.1 With the Windows CE Toolkit for Visual J++ 1.1,
Java developers can leverage the high productivity environment of Visual J++ on
the desktop to create Java applications for Windows CE.
The Toolkit for
Visual J++ is designed to take advantage of the JDK 1.1.3 features supported by
the Java VM for Windows CE, including a componentized and configurable set of
classes, along with Windows CE specific classes
In order to develop for
the HP Jornada 420 Palm-size PC, you will also need either of the first two
tools mentioned above (the Microsoft® Windows® CE Toolkit for Visual C++® 6.0
and the Microsoft® Windows® CE Toolkit for Visual Basic® 6.0). The Java
environment is NOT available for Palm-size PC.
Gee whiz, I wonder why?