At 22:24 2002-11-12 -0800, you wrote:
About 6 months ago we purchased a copy of Codewarrior 8 for $400. The new version 9 costs $350 or $50 less than the old version. If we "upgrade" to version 9 we need to spend a total of $600 to get the latest copy where as if we and many other people waited would only have spent $350, less than we originally paid for.Yes, and you got the use of the new features in V8 for six months, while people who waited did not. Would you rather than we charge more to other people out of spite?
The $200 dollar price to upgrade seems way out of sync the way this sounds. Metrowerks already got $400 from us, and now want 50% more? ben, does this make any sense to you? I called the sales guy at Metrowerks and he said the biggest plus to upgrade to version 9 was that it contained the simulator and the OS 5 SDK! Just like everyone else, I have downloaded the SDK and the simulator for free months ago.The SDK and Palm OS Simulator aren't the key new features of V9... there are several major things that are worth the upgrade price. I didn't want to post this yet, as my team and I are still busy getting the product through final beta testing, but here's what I can confirm:
1) New ARM compiler -- this release includes a version of the Metrowerks ARM compiler and linker designed to create ARMlets for Palm OS 5. This also includes a ARMlet support library that wraps many common Palm OS functions and lets you call them from your ARMlet using the same syntax you'd use for normal 68K code.
2) Rewritten debugger -- the 68K debugger has been rewritten and has many new capabilities:
- menu lets you choose from a selection of Palm OS emulators and simulators
- debugger can talk to emulators/simulators at arbitrary IP addresses and port numbers
- debugger supports multiple sessions at once; use this to debug communications code between multiple emulators
- debugger can automatically start POSE or PalmSim
- debugger can automatically kill the emulator/simulator session when you finish debugging
- supports SysAppLaunch-based launches to let you debug situations where your application needs to respond to requests without globals
- debugger allows specifying multiple files (both PRC and PDB) to download along with your application
- debugger has totally rewritten USB communication module for more reliable communication with Palm OS devices over the USB interface
- debugger can show formatted versions of complex types in the variable window -- see things like CStrings or DateTimeType in a easy to understand format, rather than having to dig into the structure to see the real data
- debugger supports specialized breakpoints that can perform actions when hit like running scripts, skipping over code, or playing sound files
3) New Palm OS 68K linker allows direct output of PRC files, no longer relying on the PalmRez plugin. New linker directly takes BIN, PRC, and RO files as input, letting you specify resources using PilRC without having to go through a Mac OS resource layer.
4) Command-line versions of the 68K C/C++ compiler and Palm OS 68K linker allows building Palm OS apps with CodeWarrior outside the IDE using makefiles or batch files.
5) New IDE 5.1 adds VC++-like code completion for C and C++, docking windows, and tabbed windows. New IDE also has workspace support, letting you save a configuration of projects and windows to reload later.
6) Object Library for Palm OS 4.0 (POL). Its like MFC for Palm OS, a well-designed C++ class library that wraps large parts of the Palm OS API.
7) Updated application wizard for creating standard C/C++ apps, and apps based on POL.
8) Visual resource editor that directly edits PilRC-format resource files, giving a nice drag-and-drop interface and more flexibility.
9) Palm OS error code lookup plugin, letting you quickly map error values to the Palm OS error symbol and the header file that defines them.
10) Updated 68K compiler with our 3.0 C/C++ front end -- better ANSI C++ compliance, ISO C (1999) features, virtual table optimizations, and an enhanced expanded mode that puts intersegment jump tables into the A4-reference data, allowing multiple segment applications to respond to non-global launch codes.
I'm probably missing a few minor features, but these are the ones that I can recall off the top of my head. I consider this to be a major improvement; there are far more significant features in this release for working Palm OS programmers than we had in the V6-to-V7 or V7-to-V8 upgrades, in my opinion. When we planned this, we went through hundreds of mails sent from users, looked at the key things people complained about, and tries to address as many of these as possible, while also developing the new technology to handle the challenges of PalmSource's latest operating system.
I will be re-posting this information, along with more details about some of the features on www.palmoswerks.com over the next few weeks. Some details are still being finalized and documented now, so I won't be able to answer some questions about the product until closer to its launch.
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