[CoMoDev] SuperWaba
- From: David Beers <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <comodev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 15:46:24 -0600
It happens to me about twice a year. I get obsessed with finding a good way to
write applications that will run (which minimal or no changes) on both Palms
and PocketPCs. Usually there is a few weeks of casting about and then, with a
feeling of discouragement that I tell myself is realism, I decide that there
are a lot of intriguing contenders, but nothing that satisfies what I think I
want. What I am looking for is roughly the following:
* Produces apps with the relatively rich UI people have come to expect on
Palms and PocketPCs
* Doesn't run in some pokey runtime interpreter
* Allows me to use a nice productive IDE
* Good support and a good-sized user base
* Doesn't cost an arm and a leg
Lately, I'd add an additional criterion that has been weighing more heavily on
my mind: lets me program in a real OOP language. I have to finally say that
even though C has become like a comfortable old shoe for me, I'm getting tired
of having to hammer out hundreds of lines of code to do the simplest things. I
like C# and think the .NET Compact Framework is great, but don't see a .NET VM
coming out for the Palm OS any time before hell freezes over. Yeah, there is
AppForge, which lets you code in VB.NET and then run you code in VMs for Palms,
ARM-based PocketPCs, and some Symbian devices:
http://www.ftponline.com/vsm/2004_08/magazine/departments/firstlooks/
But from what I understand there is the "pokey runtime" problem, and most
definitely the "arm and a leg" problem.
Now I'm looking seriously at SuperWaba, a set of Java-compatible class
libraries and VMs that keeps looking better the closer I look, despite the
silly name. I mentioned this earlier, but just wanted to expand on some of the
stuff I've learned that impresses me:
* While it's not compliant with J2ME or any other Sun standard for Java, you
can compile using any Java development environment you want. The language is
pure Java with all of Java's good OOP features, even if the libraries are not.
* The non-compliance is looking like maybe a good thing: many of the apparent
limitations of J2ME are not there with SuperWaba. See this:
http://www.superwaba.com.br/en/swxj2me.asp
* Performance is a lot better than with J2ME: "being integer-only and
essentially single-threaded lets this VM run four times faster than Sun?s
JIT-compiled code." The VM is supposedly a lot faster than AppForge's, too.
* If you're doing something that needs to run faster than interpreted code
allows consider this:
1. SuperWaba code can be compiled to native executables--at least on
the Palm side--using a utility called SWJump. Want to support old, slow 68k
Palms with the snappy performance people expect? Just eliminate the runtime!
(Still needs a runtime for PPC, but you've got more horsepower there anyway).
2. There is a version of the VM about to come out that is written in
native ARM code--supposed to be 4-30x faster in OS 5 Palms. Also a new VM for
Windows CE that's supposed to be 5-15x faster for speed-hungry operations like
media playback.
3. You can call libraries that are written in fast native C/C++ code
for processor-intensive operations.
* I see a *lot* of libraries that do things that are hard to do using the Palm
OS API: HTML rendering, GIF/JPG/PNG display, XML parsing, relational
databases, SQL, etc.
* The UI looks like PocketPC on a PocketPC, Palm on a Palm.
* Lot's of sample code and documentation on how to do specific, practical
things. I prefer looking at sample code than docs in many cases.
* SuperWaba is open source. The developers seem to be able to make a pretty
good business out of it, though (selling tutorials, samples, consulting
services) because great new features seem to be rolling out on a rapid timeline.
* There's a plug-in to the Eclipse IDE for writing SuperWaba apps there.
Since that's the same IDE that PalmSource has chosen for the new Palm OS
Developer Suite it would be nice to do C API and Java/SuperWaba development
from a single familiar IDE.
Here are a couple of good reviews:
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/38318
http://www.computerworld.co.nz/cw.nsf/UNID/BE3803B107AF69F8CC256DE80008FB3A?OpenDocument&More=Tools
I may finally be getting pushed into the Java camp.
David
=========================
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
Other related posts:
