First off, let me say that I'm embarassed that my inquiry about a
non-blocking EvtGetEvent set off a discussion about beginning Palm
programmers and how to learn the basics. You really know where your
question stands in the Palm community. :)
But it IS a worthwhile topic, so I thought I'd share my experience to
date:
I've gone through several stages of Palm training. The first stage was
reading the programmer's companion and browsing the SDK functions. Then
I started reading beginners books and doing the tutorial. Thanks for
all the book tips below from others - it's embarassing but Palm STILL
doesn't have its own book section yet! I usually find it in "beginner
programming" or "misc"!
I actually have the Neil Rhodes book, and I like it a lot. In fact,
IMHO, I have found no books of its equal currenly published on Palm
programming. That book had me understanding more about Palm programming
in the first five pages than I did from the first 12 lessons of the
Tutorial (although to be fair, the tutorial is excellent for learning
how to use Constructor).
However, with these types of books you hit a certain point - you realize
that you could go through several hundred more pages of developing their
sample app, and you'd definitely learn a lot about the Palm in the
process. But unforunately, you've got a project deadline, and none of
the advanced features in the sample app are specifically relevant to
your project. Moreover, you now need to know about some aspect of Palm
programming in exhaustive detail.
I think the next step is perusing sample source code and Palm headers.
You know, I actually enjoy the Palm learning curve - it limits Palm
developers more to "real programmers" and prevents an avalanche of
cheesey PC ports. Oops - sorry if that sounded political. Back to
experimenting with the Palm. :)
Richard Hartman wrote:
>
> Sounds like what you are looking for is an intro on
> PalmOS programming ... there are a number of
> books out there. The first, and still king, is the book
> by Neil Rhodes. It can now be found online in it's
> entirety at
> http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/docs/devguide/TableOfContents.htm#TopOfPage.
> Other online resources include Palm's "Programmer's
> Companion" at http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/docs/palmos/CompanionTOC.html
> and of course the API reference at
> http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/docs/palmos/ReferenceTOC.html
> (you are correct though that this last may be of little use until
> you know more about what you need to search for <g>)
>
> Finally, there are the paperware books. In addition
> to Rhode's work I opted for "PalmOS Programming
> For Dummies". (Despite the title, the "For Dummies"
> book is anything but.) Other people seem to like the
> Sam's book by Bachman. (Note: there are two Sam's
> books. The Bachman book is in Sam's Professional
> Series and not the "... in 24 hours" book.)
>
> When I was looking for a new book I checked the index
> for the item I was interested in -- I found it in the For
> Dummies book and not the Bachman book. That doesn't
> mean that the Bachman book isn't a good resource, just
> that it did not meet my needs at the time. Other people
> still recommend.
>
> If you search on Amazon.com you'll find 9 books you
> can choose from.
>
> --
> -Richard M. Hartman
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> 186,000 mi/sec: not just a good idea, it's the LAW!
>
> DIAMOND JEFF wrote in message <19565@palm-dev-forum>...
> >
> >Thanks!
> >
> >I'll check out EvtEventAvail - it sounds like the best option!
> >
> >
> >
> >You know, I saw a research paper the other day about the paradox of
> >searching - that when someone is searching for information they often
> >don't know what words to look for... :)
> >
> >What I need is something in between a tutorial and a reference -
> >something that describes the use of the functions in a module and ties
> >them all together with examples.
> >
> >
> >
> >Roger Chaplin wrote:
> >>
> >> DIAMOND JEFF <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>
> >> > This is a very basic API question and I apologize if I have just
> >> > overlooked in in the SDK documentation, but I was wondering if the
> >> > PalmOS has something like PeekMessage such that if you have no messages
> >> > in your queue, you don't block your application...
> >> > (If you have messages, you of course handle them - I'm not trying to
> >> > lock up the machine - just to keep my app from freezing while waiting
> >> > for feedback...)
> >
> >>
> >> How about EvtEventAvail? Or, have you tried experimenting with a zero
> >> timeout value to EvtGetEvent? (I haven't, but looking at the source, it
> >> seems that it would do what you want, but it also seems to incur lots
> >> of overhead compared to EvtEventAvail.)
> >>
> >> --
> >> Roger Chaplin
> >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >>
> >> --
> >> For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe,
> please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/support/forums/
> >
> >
>
> --
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