Robert Levy
07-10-2003, 08:41 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.mobilewizardry.com/multi-platform/' target='_blank'>http://www.mobilewizardry.com/multi-platform/</a><br /><br /></div>"MobileWizardry had announced SHARK, a new development kit primarily focused on building applications for handheld computing. It allows any programmer to build and target a number of handheld devices and platforms with a single code base." Currently supported platforms are Pocket PC, Palm OS, Symbian Series 60, Windows, and Smartphone 2002."<br /><br />"The kit solely based on abstraction, with the creation of new API's specifically optimized for handheld computing; allows the development of a single source code base to be easily and quickly recompiled/distributed on multiple platforms at the same time."<br /><br />"SHARK provides the basic input/output functionalities within the multi-platform environment - specifically this is event management, system input/output (keys, stylus, file, comms), graphics primitive layer and a utility layer for memory management; a BIOS environment."<br /><br />Sounds interesting but I'm always sceptical of these "one size fits all" development systems. It becomes particularly tricky when you start thinking about user interfaces. It seems to me like they are promising something which just isn't possible... how can an application be equally usable on a Pocket PC and a Smartphone which have dramatically different screen sizes and forms of input? I have trouble imagining a solution that doesn't involve creating a new UI layer for each platform. Of course, if anyone has tried this out (or another system with similar promises) I'd be interested in hearing about your experiences.