PDA Programming

Matt_Hirst

Matt_Hirst

Matt_Hirst

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Joined
27 Jan 2005
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1,347
Location
S. Yorks
Not sure if this should be in here or general hardware - so sorry if in wrong section.

Right I currently have a number of applications that we use on some old Telxon kit - was written in TCAL Telxon's version of Cobol - am looking to move these across to a PDA probably IPAQ.

Now question is what software do these IPAQ's use - sorry for dum question, just if I ask down at the local purple shirted shop they just look dum founded by the question.

Experience wise I've written applications in MSAccess - the PDA's will be talking to these systems but other than that and cobol am limited with programming experience - are there any courses people would reccomend to go on for this?

regards,

Matt
 
IPAQs use windows mobile,
I program o2 XDA with wndows mobile, and use Visual Studio.net visual basic to do it.
It makes the job so easy.
The best thing you can do is try to get hold of copy of vs.net
as far as courses are concerened, you can learn pretty much everything you need to know at msdn.microsoft.com
just go to the mobile developer centre section.
 
I'd say popular choices for programming the Windows Mobile platform are C#, Visual Basic.NET and unmanaged C++ (I use C# and C++ myself). The former couple use a library called the Compact Framework, and the latter requires an SDK for the particular "flavour" of Windows Mobile you are targetting.

Might be worth taking a look at this thread for training resources.

Both the HP iPaq and the Dell Axim ranges are worth a look as far as PDA's go, while the i-Mate range is a good bet for smartphone (combined phone/PDA) based devices.

cheers
v.f.
 
c# Express (and vb.net but we won't mention that :p) are free from the ms site. C# is a very rounded language and you should have no problems bashing out some pda apps in no time ;)
 
Hiya,

If your using the old Texlon units what sort of PDA applications are you looking to rewrite? The reason I ask is that there may well be off the shelf solutions or you could use one of the forms builder programs for data capture etc.

Do you need rugged PDA's for real use as they cost a fortune?

It depends how much you want to do aswell. Whilst you have the .NET for CE platforms available to do the development on I've read its a pain using Access on them especially with docking via active sync to import/export data.

No I personally (yet) haven't done any PDA dev (we are using Wifi and emulation to our Legacy Unix app) but if I was doing it on a budget/power ratio I'd look at the Dell Axim as its VGA and high power CPU.
 
Pinhead said:
why not?
Click to expand...

Because it's horrible :p I've had to translate a bunch of VB libraries into C# recently and have come to loath the unprecise, whishy-washy syntax. If you're going to do .NET, do it with C#... Even the lead .NET developer at MS prefers C#!

Also there are more jobs that ask for C# than VB and it's so similar to java syntax you could probably do java straight off with no difficulty (if you wanted a slightly more grown-up argument than "It's rubbish" :p)
 
1ofaKind said:
Hiya,

If your using the old Texlon units what sort of PDA applications are you looking to rewrite? The reason I ask is that there may well be off the shelf solutions or you could use one of the forms builder programs for data capture etc.

Do you need rugged PDA's for real use as they cost a fortune?

It depends how much you want to do aswell. Whilst you have the .NET for CE platforms available to do the development on I've read its a pain using Access on them especially with docking via active sync to import/export data.

No I personally (yet) haven't done any PDA dev (we are using Wifi and emulation to our Legacy Unix app) but if I was doing it on a budget/power ratio I'd look at the Dell Axim as its VGA and high power CPU.
Click to expand...

The applications we currently use the Telxon units for are anything from Work Study to cleaning monitoring systems.

With regards cost, the Telxon units were never cheap so cost really isn't an issue. We would like a ruggedish handheld but if the application can be made to run on something as cheap as a couple of hundred quid then if we get a years use out it then we'd just replace it.

With regards development work I am looking to get my hands dirty once more as I miss doing the development work.

Regards,

Matt
 
Reezer said:
Because it's horrible :p I've had to translate a bunch of VB libraries into C# recently and have come to loath the unprecise, whishy-washy syntax. If you're going to do .NET, do it with C#... Even the lead .NET developer at MS prefers C#!

Also there are more jobs that ask for C# than VB and it's so similar to java syntax you could probably do java straight off with no difficulty (if you wanted a slightly more grown-up argument than "It's rubbish" :p)
Click to expand...

personal preference, its basically the same language with different syntax. It all gets compiled to MSIL anyway, so there isnt much difference at all :)
Just because the lead developer prefers that syntax, doesnt automatically make VB.net rubbish. Its not like the old vb stuff, its now a fully object oriented language, and i bet i can do anything in VB you can do in c# :p

hehe didnt mean to start this argument again, im just bored at work :D
 
Pinhead said:
personal preference, its basically the same language with different syntax. It all gets compiled to MSIL anyway, so there isnt much difference at all :)
Just because the lead developer prefers that syntax, doesnt automatically make VB.net rubbish. Its not like the old vb stuff, its now a fully object oriented language, and i bet i can do anything in VB you can do in c# :p

hehe didnt mean to start this argument again, im just bored at work :D
Click to expand...

I'm sure you can do anything in VB that i can do in C# but that doesn't mean anyone will want to look at your fugly source :p

I agree that it is down to personal preference for people who can already program in one or the other but I don't think VB is a good choice for learners. I don't think that removing punctuation and making keywords longer helps the readability/understandability; I think the lack of {}'s is VB's worst transgression. Oh, and I don't like the "whatever as String" parameter syntax is much cop either...

But I do concede that the MSIL will be 99.99% the same so it makes little odds to the end product.

I may be more biased because the two VB developers in work SUCK... who the hell converts all variables to strings and then does a mass of string manipulation to do things like add one month to a DateTime? A nutter, that's who! Maybe it's coincidence that the VB devs are rubbish and none of the C# people have drawn attention to themselves with their suckyness but I like like to think it's VB's fault ;)
 
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