On Wed,  6 Oct 2004 01:40:16 -0000, Wilson, Mike E.
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> It is obvious that the new Elipse Development IDE for Palm supports the C or C++ 
> language. My question is why is there so little support for programming applications 
> in C ++ and if Palm support programming in this language why are there no foundation 
> classes or development examples, books, etc.?
>
> My limited understanding is C ++ would be more efficent than C, require less code, 
> be easier to follow and understand. Someone please expand on this for me.

Your limited understanding isn't entirely correct. C++ is C with added
features. Application written in C++, as compared to C, have more or
less equivalent efficiency and whether they require less code or are
easier to follow and understand depends much more on how well you can
program than on which language you're using.

To answer your question, though: historical baggage. Palm OS before OS
6 (i.e. OS in every publicaly available Palm device currently on the
market) has very weak support, all Palm OS API was pure C and those 2
facts combined contributed to the fact that no-one really tried to
develop C++ wrappers on Palm OS (i.e. foundation classes). Lack of C++
code to document leads to lack of examles and books.

Which is not to say that there aren't any. There is at least one
widely known C++ fundation class, POL, shipped with CodeWarrior 9.3.
If you're skilled enough, you can also use STL  with CodeWarrior 9.3.

PODS mostly targets OS 6 which has much better C++ support so the
situation might change in the future. However, Palm OS is still in C
(for obvious reasons of backward-compatibility) and currently there
are no OS 6 devices on the market, so it might not.

The point is moot anyway. C is well documented, well supported and
good enough to write high-quality applications for Palm. Those are the
limitation of Palm OS platform. Accept them, move on and start
cranking your code in C. C++ by itself won't save you.

Krzysztof Kowalczyk | http://blog.kowalczyk.info

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