python on handhelds

[John E. Barham]

<ognen at bioinfo.pbi.nrc.ca> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I have inherited a 180,000 line VC++ project that I received a
> green-light to rewrite/redesign. I come from a Unix background and would
> very much like to go ahead and do it in Python however one of the
> requirements is that a part of the app runs on a Palm. I have heard of
> pippy (the python port for palmos) - but have no experience with it. My
> manager is leaning towards Java. Does anyone have any experiences to
> share as to the usability of the python port to palmos? Ease of
> development? Any comparisons with Java for palms?

Hi there,

I've done (and am currently doing) a lot of work in Python--mainly on
Windows--and on the Palm, using Metrowerks C++.  Presumably you're
already comfortable with C++ in which case I'd recommend sticking with
it on the Palm.  Although the Palm API is straight C, we use
full-blown C++ (including the STL) for our application.  C/C++ on the
Palm is very different from the server-side due to the idiosyncracies
of the Palm file system, the fact that Palm database records can be
read and written to (with care ;) as if they were RAM and the lack of
stdio (no printf() debugging means you really appreciate the
debugger!).  Basically you leave behind the standard C library on the
Palm.  Palm provides excellent documentation for the C
API(http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/docs/palmos/) and includes the C
source code for many of the standard Palm apps
(http://www.palmos.com/cgi-bin/sdk40.cgi/sdk40-examples.zip) which
I've found invaluable in creating our own applications, albeit wishing
I was reading Python instead...

BTW, I've installed and played around with Pippy but it seems far too
immature for any real Palm development, especially if you want a GUI
for your app.  A lot of fun, but not something I'd entrust with my
salary...

Keep in mind that for any substantial Palm application, much of the
work is in the desktop conduit where again the default language is C
wrapped in C++ and wrapped again recently for COM.  I'm thinking of
attempting to write our conduit in Python via the COM API.  Has anyone
else done this?  Any reason why it can't be done (with the appropriate
C++ bootstrap code)?

Although I've never attempted to do Java programming myself on the
Palm, we've spoken to others who have and their experience was that
performance was a problem and there was no standard Java wrapper to
the Palm API.  AFAIK, there is no official Palm support for Java on
the handheld.

Feel free to email me if you need more details.

  John