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Originally Posted by Jimmy Dodd
You have to get a JVM (which usually isn't free and takes up space) versus .NET CF which is either free to download or included in ROM with the device. Then there's the whole confusing JAVA world of Personal Java, Micro Java, CLDC, MIDP, MIDLETs, yadda yadda yadda. There's a pretty big learning curve just to get the development environment figured out.
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I disagree. I've been programming in Java since its inception (started early 1996) and had no problem in absorbing new versions. Sure, J2ME is pretty different from J2SE, but it's not very hard to learn either if you already know J2SE.
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just to get the development environment figured out.
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You can always code in a simple, lightweight Java editor like JCreator. I mostly don't use any kind of IDE either.
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Until recently, Sun's web site was close to impossible to figure out from a newbie standpoint. IBM has put out a lot of stuff for Pocket PC but it's still hard to figure out just what you need.
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That's, unfortunately, right. However, if one gets a decent Java intro book (e.g., Horstmann's Core Java -
http://www.horstmann.com/corejava.html ), he/she won't have problems in absorving new info/technologies after that. Sure, a book on J2ME will also be needed if he/she wants to code for J2ME too.
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I think Sun and IBM are moving to clear a lot of this up, but the whole lack of standard JVM for Pocket PC is still problematic. Sun doesn't seem to want to invest in the Pocket PC platform at all, and IBM is mainly interested in the desktop. Maybe if one or the other would acknowledge the platform and write some starter material for developers we'd see more interest.
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Sun has indeed made a mistake by completely ignoring WinCE. However, as there're tons of Java code already, and a lot of them CAN be run on the PPC (think of, for example, the vast number of networking apps that won't ever be rewritten/converted to WinCE.NET!), the situation is not that bad. (Except for the lack of a REAL JVM that is not a resource hog, is up-to-date without major hacking from the user's part and has good speed.)