Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Palm Mojo SDK 1.1

With Palm's WebOS and development tools, Web programming ascends to the throne and powers the app layer, but Palm's platform is clearly a work in progress
Page:

When the Palm Pre appeared two months ago, the world took one look at the graceful curves and immediately decided there was finally a contender that might stand a chance of attracting some of the crowds clustered around the iPhone. While the Palm Pre's shell may lure some buyers, the software on the inside is just as important. After all, smartphones are just computers for our pockets, and the depth and breadth of software available is a big selling point.

The software at the core of the Pre is even more novel than the design. Palm calls it WebOS because the dominant programming languages are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, the three syntaxes that power Web sites and browsers. This combo is dramatically simpler to use than old-school languages like Object C, so Palm has lowered the hurdles for any new programmer. If you can build a Web site, you can build a phone app.

To test this out, I built a few phone apps with the Palm Mojo SDK and came away thrilled with the simplicity. The Mojo SDK doesn't have the word "beta" floating around it, even though it's much younger than many other products that still sport the label. I think it would be fair to apply it here. The general outline of the system is solid and usable, but there are numerous rough edges and dark, undocumented corners. These should be easy for Palm to fix with ample time and attention.

Mojo rising

The SDK comes with an emulator, an inspector, a few command-line tools for compiling the code, and some samples. Many people will probably want to get the extensions for Eclipse that hide the command-line complexity and handle the compilation and installation for you. Eclipse is used by most other smartphone manufacturers as well.

The Mojo tools show flashes of genius but often reveal strange glitches. The Inspector would often get disconnected from the Emulator, so I couldn't use it to dig into the structure of the running application. Debugging is an exercise in command-line fun because you ssh into the emulator to look at the processes. I'm hoping for something like Firebug in the future.

The options are coming quickly because of the relative openness of the platform. There are now extensive automatic completion routines for WebOS programming for the Komodo editor from ActiveState Software. I'm sure other tool companies will jump on board.

Page:

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: ActiveState, ActiveState, Adobe, Apple, Eclipse, Google, Linux, Mojo, Palm
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Closing the print security gap - The market landscape for print security
    Today, many organisations continue to rely on printing to support business processes, particularly in the public sector, finance industry and legal profession. Whilst MFPs and printers have improved business productivity, they pose the same security risk as any networked device if left unprotected. With reported data breaches on the rise and growing industry and regulatory requirements around information security, businesses may suffer financial and reputational damage if they ignore the risks of unsecured printing. Read more.
    Learn more »
  • Advanced Malware Exposed - How advanced malware, zero-day and targeted APT attacks are evading today's network defences
    This handbook shines a light on the dark corners of advanced malware, both to educate as well as to spark renewed efforts against these stealthy and persistent threats. By understanding the tools being used by criminals, we can better defend our nations, our critical infrastructures and our citizens. It is certainly my hope that this book will provide readers with a new understanding of the rapidly developing cyber threat landscape and practical insights into how they can protect their data and computing infrastructures. - Robert F. Lentz, President and CEO, Cyber Security Strategies, LLC
    Learn more »
  • Rapid achievement of employee productivity gains in a modern workforce
    The last few years have seen explosive innovation in the ways that users interact with software applications, resulting in a huge surge in the adoption of tablet, smartphone, and web based social applications. Fortunately there are some simple incremental steps that any organisation can take to transition to a more people centric communications system, while lifting employee productivity. Read more.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments