Where to start - programming for mobile phones • Hacker News Board

Re: Where to start - programming for mobile phones

#11

Post by boucher » Fri, Jun 20, 2008, 11:11 PM UTC

lpgauth wrote: post #9

Started reading 'The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language' ( http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Ob... ) today for an iPhone library I have to write and I was wondering if there was a big difference between objective-c 1.0 and 2.0 (I can't seem to find any books on 2.0 at my university library). Also, can anyone recommend a good cocoa book?

Objective-C 2.0 introduced garbage collection and "properties", as well as a new enumeration syntax.

The best beginning Cocoa book is "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X", found here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321503619/bignerdran...

It's a great book, and a huge number of mac developers got started with it. The new version (which has Obj-C 2.0, Leopard, and other updates) just came out a few weeks ago.

Re: Where to start - programming for mobile phones

#12

Post by cpr » Fri, Jun 20, 2008, 11:13 PM UTC

lpgauth wrote: post #9

Started reading 'The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language' ( http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Ob... ) today for an iPhone library I have to write and I was wondering if there was a big difference between objective-c 1.0 and 2.0 (I can't seem to find any books on 2.0 at my university library). Also, can anyone recommend a good cocoa book?

No, there isn't a huge difference between Obj-C 1.x and 2.0.

2.0 brings you object properties (just syntactic sugar), object iteration (for x in ...), and garbage collection (but not on the iPhone).

http://theocacao.com/document.page/510 is a good overview of the new features.

Re: Where to start - programming for mobile phones

#13

Post by jhancock » Sat, Jun 21, 2008, 10:04 AM UTC

The latest is http://www.sproutcore.com/

Its not mobile specific but is the new framework that Apple is using for its mobile me apps. This would allow you to dev apps for workstation or handhelds.

The easy language to get started with sproutcore is ruby ;)

Re: Where to start - programming for mobile phones

#14

Post by yawn » Sat, Jun 21, 2008, 12:49 PM UTC

mpfefferle wrote: post #3

This is the only Android book I'm aware of. I haven't read it though so I can vouch for it's quality. http://pragprog.com/titles/eband/hello-android The only supported language on Android is Java, so I'd stick with that.

There's this book too:

http://commonsware.com/Android/index.html

Re: Where to start - programming for mobile phones

#15

Post by mpfefferle » Mon, Jun 23, 2008, 2:39 AM UTC

sark wrote: post #10

If you want your app to run on majority of cell phones out there J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) is currently your best bet. It may not be as feature rich as IPhone SDK or Google Android but it is probably the most ubiquitous platform for cell phones today. You can download a free WTK (Wireless Tool Kit) from java.sun.com and there are good tutorials on the same site for J2ME beginers. One thing to remember is if you mak…

In theory J2ME has wide distribution, but in reality, the platform is highly fragmented.

I agree that the platform is pretty tightly locked down, and both of these issues make the platform useless for real development. If you want to write anything other than a Tetris clone, stick with an open platform.