Andreas, I have mixed feelings. I am impressed that I could load my application into the Cobalt simulator and it works fine, with only one problem I can find so far. On the other hand I am surprised that they are making such a radical move in development tools. I would have like Palm to work a little closer with Metrowerks on this. It would have been nice to use the same tool to create the new Protein applications.
I am starting to work with the CF .Net on the PocketPC and I find it really nice to develop with, though a bit slow. Seems fine for database type apps though. Another good thing about MS is that they are really open with their developers about the direction they are going. Palm could learn something from Microsoft about how to treat their developers. Jamie "Linke, Andreas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > So I patiently downloaded the whopping 250 MB "Palm OS Developer Suite", skimmed through the docs, ran my apps in the PalmSim 6, looked at some samples and frankly, I'm shocked. I've been programming Palm OS for 7 years now, but I can't remember such a radical change. There seems to be no attempt at compatibility, neither binary nor in source. > > A Protein app created for OS 6 will not run on OS 5 and earlier. Classic 68k apps may run on OS 6 but cannot access any of the new features of OS 6. PACE in OS 6 "provides no additional functionality beyond that provided by earlier releases of Palm OS." (porting guide) > > This means there is no longer a way to support all Palm OS releases in a single prc file: > > When I want/need to use only one single new feature of OS 6, I'll have to split projects, and create and maintain a separate code line. Given the fact that PalmSource openly admits that OS 5 and OS 6 will coexist for some time in the future, this means double maintenance, seperate downloads, and a support nightmare. Not to mention user confusion ("is my Tungsten running Cobalt?"). > > After stopping support for system patching in OS 5, Palm introduced some new low-level notifications as a replacement. Now they removed all the interesting ones again in OS 6 (e.g. sysNotifyEventDequeuedEvent). No hint in the 600 page porting guide about how to work around this. > > It looks like the way to handle dynamic input areas (aka virtual Graffiti area aka virtual silkscreen) has changed again. > > Several functions that PalmSource deemed "rarely used", e.g. EvtGetPenBtnList() or EvtKeyQueueSize() have just been removed in OS 6. Some others have been renamed, because it seems they just didn't sound right... > > And, apparently just for fun, they've changed all the type names again > (e.g. UInt32 becomes uint32_t). > > What do others think? > > Andreas > www.LinkeSOFT.com > -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
