At 08:18 AM 12/10/99 -0500, you wrote:
>I too think the articles in Dr. Dobbs journal are encouraging; but on the
>other hand, Dobb's is mostly for hardcore techies. I look forward to the day
>when we see how-to articles in more mainstream magazines. That won't happen
>until the development tools become more mainstream. I look back on what the
>Basic interpreter did for pc's. Does anybody out there think that some sort
>of interpreter with Basic-like syntax would be a major boon, at least in
>terms of making Palm programming more attractive to hobbiests and even
>professional programmers? I've played around with CBAS, and with all due
>respect, it's a start, but it's a long way off from being a serious
>development tool. Does anyone have any opinions about why such a critter
>doesn't exist commercially yet? Are there economic factors that I don't see?
>
Mitch,
You make an excellent point.
I would find it hard to believe that the marketplace will allow the current
mainstream options (CW, GCC, SatForms and Pendragon) to stand unchallenged
for long. And adding Java to that list doesn't address your concern either.
Arguments about the merits of languages and platforms aside, one need only
look at how the introduction of Visual Basic redefined what "windows
developer" meant (formerly it was someone who knew C intimately as well as
a large SDK - sound familiar?). The number of people who could count
themselves as capable of creating meaningful Windows applications jumped
dramatically, and really pushed the platform forward.
We have no plans ourselves for such a tool, nor do we know of anyone who is
contemplating building and (perhaps more importantly) marketing one. The
marketplace waits.....?
Glenn
Glenn Bachmann
Bachmann Software and Services, LLC
http://www.bachmannsoftware.com
Software for Handheld & Wireless Computing, Windows and the Internet
Authors of "Palm Programming", published by Macmillan/Sams, and home of
Bachmann Print Manager, the only graphical printing solution for the Palm
Computing Platform
