Re: Comparison Commentary?
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Before I get too involved with my development project(s) would anyone like to share their opinions or experiences when dealing with CodeWarrior versus the other 'free' choices for application tools? TANSTAAFL __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Comparison Commentary?
I don't use the free tools but maybe YGWYPF applies. - Original Message - From: Joe [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Palm Developer Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2002 9:18 AM Subject: Re: Comparison Commentary? --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Before I get too involved with my development project(s) would anyone like to share their opinions or experiences when dealing with CodeWarrior versus the other 'free' choices for application tools? TANSTAAFL __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/ -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
RE: Comparison Commentary?
Before I get too involved with my development project(s) would anyone like to share their opinions or experiences when dealing with CodeWarrior versus the other 'free' choices for application tools? I believe the main reason for choosing CodeWarrior vs GNU is on the management side. CW developers are more standartized and easier to deal with. GNU developers are often brighter, but harder to manage and somewhat harder to find just when you need them. This is on a wide scope, of course, there are exceptions in all categories. I think a good developer should be able to deal with both, but a good company should set on a standard and I usually favor commercial standards for various reasons. Your mileage may vary. - bobby -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Comparison Commentary?
GNU developers are often brighter, hey! me use codewarrior. don't liking being called less brighter. me now sad. go make new tetris program to cheer up. ;-) - Original Message - From: Borislav Kolev [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Palm Developer Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2002 11:17 AM Subject: RE: Comparison Commentary? Before I get too involved with my development project(s) would anyone like to share their opinions or experiences when dealing with CodeWarrior versus the other 'free' choices for application tools? I believe the main reason for choosing CodeWarrior vs GNU is on the management side. CW developers are more standartized and easier to deal with. GNU developers are often brighter, but harder to manage and somewhat harder to find just when you need them. This is on a wide scope, of course, there are exceptions in all categories. I think a good developer should be able to deal with both, but a good company should set on a standard and I usually favor commercial standards for various reasons. Your mileage may vary. - bobby -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/ -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
RE: Comparison Commentary?
hey! me use codewarrior. don't liking being called less brighter. me now sad. go make new tetris program to cheer up. ;-) Me uses CW too, if that will make you feel better :-/ If it doesn't, treat yourself among the exceptions I mentioned. If it still doesn't nothing will help...you're doomed ;-))) - bobby -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
RE: Comparison Commentary?
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Borislav Kolev wrote: GNU developers are often brighter, but harder to manage and somewhat harder to find just when you need them. Hey, if someone were looking for one, I'd be more than happy to make myself known. It probably wouldn't take long for a GNU developer to get the hang of CW, though... at least from hearing stories on here, some things seem easier with it (like doing multi-segment apps). --- Brian Smith // avalon73 at arthurian dot nu // http://www.arthurian.nu/ Software Developer // Gamer // Webmaster // System Administrator Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence. -- Henrik Tikkanen -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
RE: Comparison Commentary?
Hey, me too! If someone wants to pay me to write Palm apps ... I started using the GNU stuff because writing Palm apps is a hobby for me and I couldn't afford to buy tools. (All of my apps are available as shareware, so I feel I am giving something back.) Having used the GNU stuff for a few months, I have been able to do everything that I have wanted to do and don't see much of a need to use CW. alan ---Original Message--- From: Palm Developer Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Palm Developer Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 12:02:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: Comparison Commentary? On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Borislav Kolev wrote: GNU developers are often brighter, but harder to manage and somewhat harder to find just when you need them. Hey, if someone were looking for one, I'd be more than happy to make myself known. It probably wouldn't take long for a GNU developer to get the hang of CW, though... at least from hearing stories on here, some things seem easier with it (like doing multi-segment apps). -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
RE: Comparison Commentary?
At 12:02 PM 3/4/2002 -0500, you wrote: Hey, if someone were looking for one, I'd be more than happy to make myself known. It probably wouldn't take long for a GNU developer to get the hang of CW, though... at least from hearing stories on here, some things seem easier with it (like doing multi-segment apps). --- Brian Smith // avalon73 at arthurian dot nu // http://www.arthurian.nu/ Woah! You wanna go from GNU to CW! You have to go from learning from documentation in order to be able to write scripts, to aimlessly browsing through config windows and clicking on checkboxes without actually knowing what you are doing... Matt -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
RE: Comparison Commentary?
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Borislav Kolev wrote: GNU developers are often brighter, but harder to manage and somewhat harder to find just when you need them. heh.. this made me laugh today.. any implications here bobby? :P I think a good developer should be able to deal with both, but a good company should set on a standard and I usually favor commercial standards for various reasons. Your mileage may vary. i think it depends on what you want to do. both kits are good codewarrior allows you to write apps quick and without much knowledge, but, if you want to more advanced stuff and have more control, you'll tend towards the prc-tools toolchain... neil rhodes made the bridge between the two much easier when he released the pilrc plugin *g* // az [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ardiri.com/ -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
RE: Comparison Commentary?
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey, me too! If someone wants to pay me to write Palm apps ... heh.. now now, thats what we all want :) I started using the GNU stuff because writing Palm apps is a hobby for me and I couldn't afford to buy tools. (All of my apps are available as shareware, so I feel I am giving something back.) ditto.. ended up getting CWR6 free at palmsource london in early 2000.. it ended up sitting on my bookshelf for months.. until i got wind of a job that needed CW :) Having used the GNU stuff for a few months, I have been able to do everything that I have wanted to do and don't see much of a need to use CW. the transition is very easy.. kinda backward :) i messed with prc-tools way back with prc-tools 0.5.0 and getting multi segmented applications using multilink (man, that was nasty) then, the latest incarnation with prc-tools wasn't too bad, once you knew what was going on.. codewarrior.. just create code segment and drag and drop.. one thing CW always beats prc-tools over is the debugger.. wow.. thats saved my ass a few times.. code in prc-tools, debug in codewarrior.. :) *g* // az the crazy one [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ardiri.com/ -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
RE: Comparison Commentary?
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Matt Hebley wrote: Woah! You wanna go from GNU to CW! You have to go from learning from documentation in order to be able to write scripts, to aimlessly browsing through config windows and clicking on checkboxes without actually knowing what you are doing... The point is this... when you know the more difficult one to manage, then you can breeze through the other with little trouble. I went through the exact same thing going from Unix programming with GNU tools in college to Windows programming with Visual C++ as a full-time job. Just like Aaron comparing CW and GNU for Palm development, the debugger in VC++ rocks for Windows development. Learning VC++ took me probably a month, since I was already familiar with C/C++ under Unix. Of course, that's a backward move in more ways than one (just compare the stability of the 2 platforms and you'll see :-) I'm currently using GNU because (as others have stated) it's free, and I started this as a hobby as well. It's still a hobby, but one that happens to bring in a tiny income now :-) If things continue to go as they have so far, I may end up getting a copy of CW and trying it out. --- Brian Smith // avalon73 at arthurian dot nu // http://www.arthurian.nu/ Software Developer // Gamer // Webmaster // System Administrator Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence. -- Henrik Tikkanen -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
RE: Comparison Commentary?
At 01:31 PM 3/4/2002 -0500, you wrote: On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Matt Hebley wrote: Woah! You wanna go from GNU to CW! You have to go from learning from documentation in order to be able to write scripts, to aimlessly browsing through config windows and clicking on checkboxes without actually knowing what you are doing... The point is this... when you know the more difficult one to manage, then Maybe I needed some sarcasm emoticons... Matt (PS. I use CW and it is fast for developing. Have used GNU before and generally prefer non-gui, but can't argue with the CW debugger...) -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Comparison Commentary?
i messed with prc-tools way back with prc-tools 0.5.0 and getting multi segmented applications using multilink (man, that was nasty) then, the latest incarnation with prc-tools wasn't too bad, once you knew what was going on.. codewarrior.. just create code segment and drag and drop.. This alone made me give up prc-tools. The multilink stuff worked poorly at best and didn't work at all when you were doing things with floating point. It'd all compile/link, but then it's just spontaneously die in the middle of the app...real fun. prc-tools was at that point (it may be better now) a good hobbiest tool if you don't care about developing apps for a living (or from a business perspective), but CW is much better for any serious development. With that said, I still can't justify a CW v8 upgrade since v7.1 works just fine (sorry Ben). Now Constructor on the other hand, is the worst resource editor known to man (albeit only slightly worse than the resource editor in EVC++ for PPC). Do yourself a favor and ditch that right away and use the pilrc plugin (even though some of the functionality in the plugin isn't up to date from what I can tell). And in a pinch you can always use a combo of real pilrc to produce .bin files that you can then import as DATA resources in the plugin. -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
RE: Comparison Commentary?
prc-tools was at that point (it may be better now) a good hobbiest tool if you don't care about developing apps for a living (or from a business perspective), but CW is much better for any serious development. With that said, I still can't justify a CW v8 upgrade since v7.1 works just fine (sorry Ben). One thing I never understood about commercial software is why doesn't it offer full versions with very slight limitations and clear conditions you have to purchase it if you are commercially using it. I think CW would have got a whole lot more users if they had released the full-blown version with, say, disabled optimizations, or with debug information always on. Catapult's public version only has two copyright lines to distinguish it from the Commercial version and seems to be doing very well. CW8 is a whole lot better in working with the emulator. It also has the famous a4-based support that gcc has been perking with for some time, but somehow I had always managed to get without it. I think it's still a rough patch in both implementations and the need to manually take care of setting the proper value in the system callbacks is...well, awful. - bobby -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Comparison Commentary?
Catapult's public version only has two copyright lines to distinguish it from the Commercial version and seems to be doing very well. Because Catapult is the only alternative to expensive Installshield. When you're paying $100, you're getting a bargain. CW8 is a whole lot better in working with the emulator. It also has the famous a4-based support that gcc has been perking with for some time, but somehow I had always managed to get without it. I think it's still a rough patch in both implementations and the need to manually take care of setting the proper value in the system callbacks is...well, awful. I don't know why I need to care about a4 support to be honest. I'm sure there's a reason, but I've never needed it thus far. Can you elaborate on the better emulator support? CW7.1 works 95% correctly with the emulator for me /w only one problem In know of (when an app crashes while debugging, stack variables are sometimes not available). How did CW8 change? -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
RE: Comparison Commentary?
I don't know why I need to care about a4 support to be honest. I'm sure there's a reason, but I've never needed it thus far. Can you elaborate on the better emulator support? CW7.1 works 95% correctly with the emulator for me /w only one problem In know of (when an app crashes while debugging, stack variables are sometimes not available). How did CW8 change? Could be a result of the Emulator itself evolving in the meantime too, to be honest. With 7.0 it used to hang very often and I had to close both the emulator (often through the task manager) and the IDE and then run them again. Ever since installed CW8 the problem went away. If you don't need the a4 support (that is, the need for globals/virtual tables/exceptions) at any time, or if you can get away with it then you don't need the extended mode. While arranging global memory for your app can be done with regular SDK calls, the support for virtual methods and (less often) exceptions might be very important for many. A good example might be WordSmith, which, I believe uses C++ actively. The use of a4 allows gcc to utilize glibs, which is easier and more optimized code extension modules than shared libs are. Again, there are pros and cons and I am not advocating for either here. Bottom line is, if you design, code and sell well without CW8 then you really don't need it. Especially now when CW9 is in sight. - bobby -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/ -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Comparison Commentary?
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Before I get too involved with my development project(s) would anyone like to share their opinions or experiences when dealing with CodeWarrior versus the other 'free' choices for application tools? It's not an easy question because it's not 'all or nothing'. When creating an internationalisation system to support our requirements we moved string and bitmap resource out of Constructor and into .rcp and .r files generated by scripts in an Access database. I've had significant problems with Constructor over the years (random file corruptions, numerous significant bugs, no support for external access to its non-Windows file format) and would advise that you consider not using Constructor for resource management. In saying that, I haven't created forms in the non-Constructor tools so I can't offer full advice, just that management of string and bitmap resources was *much* easier using standard Windows file formats. While I am unhappy with the lack of progress CodeWarrior has shown in years from v5 to v8 and consider the upgrade price too high it is, overall, a good development environment with good tools. I suspect that the work involved in keeping up with PalmOS changes forces many client-requested changes to be pushed back to lower priority. Chris Tutty -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Comparison Commentary?
I for one still have this problem bad enough that I've given up using it on windows and have gone back to the Mac. Out of 3 windows boxes available to me, only _one_ works marginally well where I can run a debug session more than ONCE w/o getting a UE error that kills the IDE losing my window positions and breakpoints. I will admit this problem was slightly reduced with the release of Emulator 3.4 Even so :/ It's unacceptable IMHO. Simmilarly, my partner has 3 different PC's and one Laptop. He does have one where it seems to work very well. But alas he cannot run it on his laptop. Upgrading to 8.1 actually made this issue worse for us. (again my reasoning for doing 98% of my work on a Mac for now). this will soon be an issue as we build in support and would like to be able to debug against the Sony version of Pose. (though I've ordered a serial cable so i can just use a device). I don't know if it's CW or Pose that's misbehaving. Seems to me might even be something that POSE is doing that CW just doesn't handle well. I prefer to give keith the benefit of the doubt :) -- Matt Disher [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Borislav Kolev [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Palm Developer Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 17:10:30 -0600 To: Palm Developer Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Comparison Commentary? Could be a result of the Emulator itself evolving in the meantime too, to be honest. With 7.0 it used to hang very often and I had to close both the emulator (often through the task manager) and the IDE and then run them again. Ever since installed CW8 the problem went away. -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Comparison Commentary?
--- Matt Disher (TiBook) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I for one still have this problem bad enough that I've given up using it [CodeWarrior] on windows and have gone back to the Mac. On the pro CW side: I've used 4 different versions of CW on two different machines (running Win98, Win98SE, Win2K) and I've never the problem you describe. The ONLY problem I've had with CW was getting used to certain counter-intuitive Mac-isms in the IDE. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Comparison Commentary?
Agreed... Apparently a lot of folks 'don't' have this problem. I've opened a case with Metrowerks. But it's gone no farther than (uhm, delete your debugger cache). I cordially invite any of their QA staff to visit glorious Silly Corn Valley, Ohio. As I can easily reproduce it on 5 machines ;-/ And very unfortunatlly I'm not exagerating. I'm also willing to do what ever it takes to get it fixed, run debug versions, send them just about any info, even let them witness it over VNC or something simmilar. Hell, I'd even consider shipping one of the machines to them. -- Matt Disher [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Joe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Palm Developer Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 20:01:43 -0800 (PST) To: Palm Developer Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Comparison Commentary? --- Matt Disher (TiBook) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I for one still have this problem bad enough that I've given up using it [CodeWarrior] on windows and have gone back to the Mac. On the pro CW side: I've used 4 different versions of CW on two different machines (running Win98, Win98SE, Win2K) and I've never the problem you describe. The ONLY problem I've had with CW was getting used to certain counter-intuitive Mac-isms in the IDE. -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Comparison Commentary?
In article 82668@palm-dev-forum, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says... I for one still have this problem bad enough that I've given up using it on windows and have gone back to the Mac. Out of 3 windows boxes available to me, only _one_ works marginally well where I can run a debug session more than ONCE w/o getting a UE error that kills the IDE losing my window positions and breakpoints. I will admit this problem was slightly reduced with the release of Emulator 3.4 Even so :/ It's unacceptable IMHO. Simmilarly, my partner has 3 different PC's and one Laptop. He does have one where it seems to work very well. But alas he cannot run it on his laptop. Upgrading to 8.1 actually made this issue worse for us. (again my reasoning for doing 98% of my work on a Mac for now). this will soon be an issue as we build in support and would like to be able to debug against the Sony version of Pose. (though I've ordered a serial cable so i can just use a device). The 8.1 patch was a misstep in some areas where debugging was concerned. Looking back at the release notes for it, we see three debugger problems fixed: * Fixed a problem clearing breakpoints on running code Real problem, really fixed. * Fixed a problem where error messages would give unknown error * messages instead of the predefined Palm error messages. Another real problem, really fixed. * Several changes were made to handle error conditions when PRC's do * not load properly. This most often is seen in problems doing many * repeated build, load debug cycles. A real problem, but the fix caused more problems. In particular, after we did this, we kept seeing situations where after a reset, POSE wouldn't reload the application. We'd get an error back from the emulator indicating that the code resource was corrupt or that it couldn't be locked down. This problem actually has been there for a while, but better error propagation in POSE 3.4 combined with the error detection in the 8.1 plugin led to lots more failed connects. In the past, the connect might have worked, but you'd be debugging not-so-fresh code. The 8.2 debugger patch has addressed a lot of these issues. It fixes a multisegment loading problem I saw here in Austin, plus some simulator connection issues, and some other random stuff we saw in January and February. I've posted some notes about it at www.palmoswerks.com -- right now, it looks like next Wednesday will be the live date for this patch, on both Mac and Windows. -- Ben Combee [EMAIL PROTECTED] CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Comparison Commentary?
In article 82662@palm-dev-forum, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says... While I am unhappy with the lack of progress CodeWarrior has shown in years from v5 to v8 and consider the upgrade price too high it is, overall, a good development environment with good tools. I suspect that the work involved in keeping up with PalmOS changes forces many client-requested changes to be pushed back to lower priority. I came on as technical lead for the Palm OS tools group about six months before V8 was released. Here's my personal view of what happened before that: V6 was pushed out as part of the Palm-Metrowerks OEM agreement where Palm actually sold the tools, but Metrowerks was the supplier. It was also the last big release that the original tech lead did before he left to go work for Palm. After the agreement lapsed and Metrowerks regained control of the tools, upper management decided to do V7 and get it out for PalmSource 2000. The total engineering schedule on this release was less than six weeks, so the team focused on cleaning up lots of bugs, moving to the new IDE, updating to the 3.5 SDK, and making something stable. However, the v7 team didn't have anyone who'd actually spent a lot of time programming for Palm OS, so they didn't see a lot of what could be improved. I came back to Metrowerks in April 2001. V8 shipped in October. In those six months, we did a lot of things. We build wizards, we updated to the 4.0 SDK, we revised the pref panels, we wrote out own tutorial, we developed expanded mode, and everything else I mention at http://www.palmoswerks.com/stories/storyReader$10. I had some bigger plans, but the tight schedule to get it ready by the original date of PalmSource 2001 caused us to push some things to the next release. In retrospect, the new V8 features weren't drastic enough... the wizards are nice, but not a must-have for experienced developers, while expanded mode and the debugger improvements weren't big features for most of the people out there. The UI improvements in the pref panels made figuring out things easier, but if you already understood them, it didn't matter. I still think V8 is underrated by lots of people, but at the same time, I recognize that if someone was used to V7 and happy with that, V8 wouldn't make them much happier. Talking with developers on these boards and at PalmSource 2002 has been really helpful. I'm working hard to put together a V9 that will solve a lot of the biggest problems that people have with the current toolset, while also providing new functionality that people won't expect. I can't say too much just yet -- however, if you replied to the mails that went out to registered CW users, know that someone on our team has looked at your feedback, and it will be affecting the final product. -- Ben Combee [EMAIL PROTECTED] CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
