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Symbian Won

shkspr.mobi

181–190 of 290 posts

Re: Symbian Won

#181

I used work for Symbian. The OS itself was great at the time (it's open sourced somewhere), and got security correct (I don't recall 'privacy' ever being an explicit goal) but it was an absolute bitch to develop for. It had its own dialect of C++ which looks nothing like modern C++, the learning curve was huge. It tried really hard to have an app ecosystem but it was nothing like what google and apple have today. Net…

I can't edit my comment, but the source code seems to be here: https://github.com/SymbianSource I could never accept the coding standard for curly bracket positioning.

> I could never accept the coding standard for curly bracket positioning.

Hahaha, how bad could it be...

... Why the fuck would they need to indent every function by an 8-space tab!?

Re: Symbian Won

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when J2ME support was added, it became easy to develop apps. I used to develop J2ME apps as hobby, I made a game and took it for my first job interview. In that job I had to port a 30,000+ J2ME code app to Android in 2010. The company I worked for was even experimenting with NFC payments in Nokia Symbian phones in 2010!

> But when J2ME support was added, it became easy to develop apps. And adding Python support for S60 (PyS60) was the best gift by Nokia for users as it brings Symbian devices to be "on-the-go handheld devs tool for developing apps without desktop PC".[0] Has you ever know that there is fully functional Blender-like 3D mesh editor & animator app written in Python for S60 (PyS60) directly on Symbian smartphone?[1] [0]…

Oh my, this thread is bringing back sweet nostalgia!

>And adding Python support for S60 (PyS60) was best gift by Nokia

Yeah installing python interpreter in S60 on my Nokia N70 ME, motivated me to checkout Python programming book from my college library. As I was reading it in the class during break, the top-ranking girl student came across and asked me "Why Python, isn't it a dead language?"(circa 2006-2007) I assumed she must be right, I didn't write python until several years later; I bet she's using Python in her job now.

Re: Symbian Won

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't edit my comment, but the source code seems to be here: https://github.com/SymbianSource I could never accept the coding standard for curly bracket positioning.

> I could never accept the coding standard for curly bracket positioning. Hahaha, how bad could it be... ... Why the fuck would they need to indent every function by an 8-space tab!?

I worked at STMicro for a while, and a neighboring team worked on Symbian support. I remember they had this weird coding standard that was essentially "why the fuck not?".

Now, over a decade later, I understand that they looked at the Symbian standard, and saw that anything goes.

Re: Symbian Won

#184

I used work for Symbian. The OS itself was great at the time (it's open sourced somewhere), and got security correct (I don't recall 'privacy' ever being an explicit goal) but it was an absolute bitch to develop for. It had its own dialect of C++ which looks nothing like modern C++, the learning curve was huge. It tried really hard to have an app ecosystem but it was nothing like what google and apple have today. Net…

I can't edit my comment, but the source code seems to be here: https://github.com/SymbianSource I could never accept the coding standard for curly bracket positioning.

There are few more places where you could grab Symbian sources.[0]

[0] https://mrrosset.github.io/Symbian-Archive/Links.html

Re: Symbian Won

#185
> "Because, as it turns out, a Libertarian free-for-all doesn’t work."

But isn't that how the Internet works? No one "approves" a website for release.

Re: Symbian Won

#186

I used work for Symbian. The OS itself was great at the time (it's open sourced somewhere), and got security correct (I don't recall 'privacy' ever being an explicit goal) but it was an absolute bitch to develop for. It had its own dialect of C++ which looks nothing like modern C++, the learning curve was huge. It tried really hard to have an app ecosystem but it was nothing like what google and apple have today. Net…

I can't edit my comment, but the source code seems to be here: https://github.com/SymbianSource I could never accept the coding standard for curly bracket positioning.

Whitesmiths style is for sadists.

Re: Symbian Won

#187

> "Because, as it turns out, a Libertarian free-for-all doesn’t work." But isn't that how the Internet works? No one "approves" a website for release.

Right, but browsers are "regulated". The attack surface that a website has against a user is much smaller than what an app has. Or at least was, I think websites and apps are converging now.

Re: Symbian Won

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> Especially the secure connection. Why would it ever ask that? For whatever reason, old Internet Explorers (9? 10? not sure..) do that too...

The really old ones didn't even have a "remember this choice" checkbox.

The only thing more annoying is when it ignores the remember this site checkbox.

The current ones will ignore the remember this site probably due to a stupid group policy.

Possibly forgets on logoff

Re: Symbian Won

#189
post #91

When I moved from the UK to the US in early 2006 I lost my Symbian-running 6680 Nokia, because it couldn't be ported over, it was locked to a UK network and they refused to unlock it. I loved Symbian at the time, losing it took me back to the dark ages. In the UK I'd had my Nokia 6680 with front and rear cameras, unlimited 3G, multi-tasking apps, a proper web browser, the ability to install apps, and even some crap a…

I was big into Symbian before iOS and Android came around, and I was incredibly excited to buy the N95, the (then) flagship phone. I purchased the US variant of the phone very shortly after its launch date from the Nokia store in NYC.

This was one of the few Symbian phones to make it to American shores with our 3G bands, and at the time it was notable for having the best camera available.

I loved the device, but the same year the original iPhone came out. On the spec sheet it was worse in every way - no third party apps, no 3g, etc etc. But the market spoke quickly, and the N95 became the last Nokia device I would own.

I always thought it was a shame that the high end Nokia devices failed to really target the US market. Usually they were lacking key frequencies, and/or only available unlocked (without any carrier subsidies). Had Nokia been better situated here, perhaps they could have presented some real competition to the iPhone, but there was no way people were going to go specifically seek out an expensive, high end Symbian phone when AT&T had subsidized iPhones and a massive advertising blitz.

Re: Symbian Won

#190
No they didn’t. They made a huge mistake: not forcing their own AppStore globally.

The way to get app was by content aggregators and premium sms sites. Developers were lucky if they got 10% of the purchase price.

So please people, stop complaining about 30% for discovery, security checks, big number of payment methods, tax-consolidation, and global availability.

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