Here's my experience todate. You must make a decision first on what type of applications you want to develop. Why? It will determine what level of language ability or development IDE you will need.
1. Advance PDAT at www.pdatnutsandbolts.com is an inexpensive way to make an entry into Palm Development if your needs are simple: This means form based applications that are primarily used to enter and track data. There is a simple script language which continues to expand with the most recent release and the forum is one of the best out there for new people to get help on Palm Development. No runtime required. 2. If you need a true language with lots of flexiability I would look at NSBasic for Palm next at www.nsbasic.com. The entry price is higher but the capability is better also. The downsided to NSBasic is simply size and speed. Because it is basic it requires a runtime which of course makes your final applications larger. That could be an issue depending upon your target market. The forum is very good and there is a good book by Michael Verive availble through any online bookstore with a 2nd additon coming out soon. 3. If you want to dive into Jave there is Superwaba. Lots of good support but the VM is again large (348K) which is always there on top of your code. Just think of it as a runtime. This is free because it is Open Source but there are Tutorials and Libraries for Database functionality, etc. that will cost you money. Again a good forum available for this product. 4. If you want to dive into C which is what the Palm OS is developed in you might want to look at OnBoard C. Again an Open Source project available on www.sourceforge.net. Just do a search for Palm and you will find it. The downside of this product is you have run it on the Palm or your POSE to do development. It has good support on the forumn, lots of examples, and again a book available on any online bookstore. No cost entry. 5. If you have lots of time and you are able to stick to it, than the new Palm Development Platform on Eclipse will be the choice. It is free, very capable and promises to be enhanced now that Palm has stated it is their choice for moving their development platform forward. The downside is you will have both the IDE, C or C ++ plus all the wonderful API stuff to learn before you can do anything worthwhile. Is it worth it, if your applications are complex and you want to have fast and efficent code, absolutely. But beware, you will have to put in lots of time to get over the hump. I am still in that process but at this time willing to continue regardless because my applications tend to be complex and require speed and small prc files to reach the greatest market I can. That's my two cents, I have used all the products above for development and have experience with all. There are certainly times where I would still chose the other given the application. As a mentor on PDAT would say, The right tool for the application makes all the difference. Regards, Michael Wilson -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
