Books for/about - palm os

Palm OS Programming Bible, Second Edition

Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Lonnon R. Foster

ISBN: 0764549618
List Price: $39.99
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 4
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Summary: Good choice for learing Palm OS
Well organized, understandable, and has a good index. Associated web site also useful.

Summary: a must read for programming a palm
This is a "must read" for people programming or interested in programming apps for the palm.

BUT:

a.- Does not cover Palm Developer Suite (Eclipse).
b.- It covers the Codewarrior and AFAIK this is not available anymore (at least for now) from Metrowerks.
c.- Even if it says "covers palm os 5" you will also need to read all the newest info from Palm to get a real feeling of "what's new" with OS 5.

Again, I insist, is a MUST READ, but it will not be your only reference.

1 star goes down because of what I mentioned before.
4 stars go up because of I did NOT mention. This is a really great reference for Palm OS Programming.

Summary: Indispensable
I've been a programmer for 10 years but was new to the Palm OS development environment when I bought this book. It shaved weeks off of my development time. While there is a huge amount of free Palm OS development information online, the online information is geared towards those that are already experienced in the field. There is a paucity of comprehensive, introductory information. This book serves that function excellently. Each topic is introduced in a very understandable manner, while also being discussed in great depth. When embarking on a new area of Palm Programming, this is a great place to start.

Regarding the review beating up this book for lacking more examples and reference information, this type of information is amply supplied by PalmSource.com, user groups, and other sources, all for free and all in digital format. PalmSource.com alone released several reference volumes in searchable PDF format that are a great compliment. It would be a waste of paper to put it in this book.

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Palm Programming for the Absolute Beginner w/CD (For the Absolute Beginner (Series).)

Publisher: Course Technology PTR
Authors: Andy Harris

ISBN: 0761535241
List Price: $29.99
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Summary: Should be titled learn PocketC programming
Yes, PocketC is a nice productive development environment for Palm - but it is based on a proprietary hybrid of the C language - and the whole book is centered around this specific development environment - if you think the book will cover standard c/c++ (e.g. using the gnu C++ compiler), you're in for a shock! Also, you have to BUY PocketC after 45 days, because it is shareware - the standard development environment offered by Palm (based on the Eclipse integrated environment & gnu c++) is FREE

Summary: Good for beginners, with caveats
PocketC is an excellent programming platform for Palm devices. I have used it to create simple programs, and it turns out, with little more care, can be used to create professional quality programs. This book does not show you how to create professional quality programs with PocketC. However, it is a good book to start if you want to learn programming in your own time.

Personally, I find the program samples rather useless, and not at all fun. Perhaps better examples should have been used. Watch out for amateurish code! Plenty of them peppers the examples. Most annoying is rectangles intersection code. The author admits it is faulty, and instead of fixing it, provides excuses for it. Why didn't he ask his smart programmer friend on how to fix it? It's not a hard problem. Some of the slowness of the code may stem from the way CControls works, so you may do better providing your own code. A reading of Algorithm by Robert Sedgewick can prove useful.

Good points: Easy reading, accessible for beginners. Good PocketC packages. STAIR principle.

Bad points: Amateurish code. Lots of space padding pictures. Not all examples are useful program.

Summary: An Excellent Start
I liked this book because it gave me an invaluable knowledge base to start programming in for my Palm. It neatly covers most of what I need from palm programming without getting bogged down in complicated programming concepts such as object-oriented programming and interaction with the Palm OS. However, I hope Andy Harris has written books on those as well, because thanks to this one, I'm ready to go there too. I do wish the book had more information on how to represent my applications in the application window. I also would like to have the POSE software the book says is on the CD. The index and table of contents promise both, yet the book/CD combo provides neither.

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	eBible for Palm OS Publisher: Nelson Reference Authors: Nelson Reference
ISBN: 0785251588 List Price: $39.97 Amazon Price: $25.18 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: Reviews: Summary:

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Palm OS Programming: The Developer's Guide, 2nd Edition

Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Authors: Neil Rhodes Julie McKeeban

ISBN: 1565928563
List Price: $39.95
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 3
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Summary: Palm OS Programming The Developer's Guide
The information was not as detailed in some areas as I had hoped. It would be a handy reference guide except! The pages are separating from the binder and I expect that in a few months I will have many lose pages stuffed in the book, Especially in areas I reference often. A good reference book should withstand repeated usage, and this one will not.This book was bought new in mid November and has had just one months useage.

Summary: Excellent - Latest Edition will always be on my bookshelf
After dabling with a Palm for awhile, and browsing the 1st ed of this book, I decided to get serious about Palm programming. So I obtained the latest edition, 2nd edition and wondered why there isn't a 3rd edition; as the second edition does not cover higher than Palm OS 4.1.

However, given that, I find now that I am reading this 2nd edition from cover to cover. It is truely excellent. Yes there are areas it would be nice to cover in more detail; but there are also specific books such as Palm Database Programming that go into these areas in more depth.

I have lectured at college, and am planning to give a semester course in Palm Programming, and I intend to have each of my students buy this book as the major text.

I shall always buy the latest most current edition of this for my bookshelf.

Excellent work and praise for the two authors! Where is the awaited 3rd edition?

Summary: Excellent Palm programming book
Have you ever wanted to get into Palm programming, but were unsure about
how to go about it?

Well wait no more, O'Reilly (I'm sure you know about them) has a really
great book on Palm Programming called "Palm OS Programming - The
developer's guide".

This is one of the best programming books I have ever read, and I read
them daily. The content is clear and even though it includes extensive
source code examples is not boring - a typical problem with programming
books.

The book starts with the special requirements of programming for mobile
organizer devices, and proceeds to develep a reasonable sized application,
right through to writing a desktop conduit. By the time you have finished
the book, you should be ready to create your own Palm program.

The only thing I would change about the book is that it does not go into
handling categories in database items (IE GUI and coding examples), I'm
sure these are available from PalmSource, but I would have liked to have
it all in the book.

I've always liked O'Reilly books, but this is absolutely the best I have
read yet.

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Professional Palm OS Programming (Wrox Professional Guides)

Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Lonnon R. Foster Glenn Bachmann

ISBN: 076457373X
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Summary: Needs re-organized
This book would be better if it was re-organized. By chapter 4 you are entering a program, but you can't run it until after several more chapters, as creating resource files isn't discussed until chapter 6. Without the resource files (icons, form definition, etc.) the program can't run. Sort of disappointing after typing in all that code.

The books web site includes complete code for those using either CodeWarrior 8 or 9, but if you are using PODS you are out of luck. It discusses PODS, but as something of an after thought. The PODS documentation will serve you far better.

I also hope you are already familiar with C/C++ programming.

All the information to program for Palm OS appears to be here, but you will have to hunt around for it and be familiar with what you are doing.

Definitely not a raw beginner's guide.

Summary: The only game in town
This would appear to be the only up-to-date introduction to Palm programming and one of the few in print. It supersedes the Palm OS Propramming Bible.

The book covers the ground pretty well for both the Garnet and Cobalt flavors of the OS, and describes the different developments systems available, including Eclipse (available free with the SDK from Palm). The text is very readable.

You see a lot of complaints about programming manuals that are 80% code, and that complaint certainly doesn't apply here. In fact, I find myself wishing that there were more (short) code examples in the text. The full sample code must be downloaded from the publisher's site, and much of the text won't mean much without reference to that code.

The documentation that comes with the Palm SDK is pretty good, and of course essential, but for an overview in a handier format, this book can be recommended.

Summary: Programming book
Book arrived in VG condition and contents are as indicated on information blurb supplied by Amazon. Altogether very satisfied.

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NS Basic Programming for Palm OS

Publisher: Eastwood Group
Authors: Michael J. Verive

ISBN: 0969584466
List Price: $39.95
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 4
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Summary: Enjoy getting into Palm OS programming
I have been programming computers professionally for 20 years. Palm OS is my latest platform. So I willingly became a beginner again. My yearning was to reclaim the old dinosaur days when programming was more fun (at least to me).

So I bought a Palm device, NS Basic, and this book. I was not disappointed. Quite simply, NS Basic Programming for Palm OS (2nd Ed.) is the essential tutorial supplement to the official manual.

To be honest, I believe that this book could help both beginners and veteran re-beginners to make their comfort-zone in the world of Palm OS programming.

The author has a no-stress style that I find appealing being used to the pressures of project deadlines. The examples work well to get more than just the programming language aspects across to the reader. The author helps you along the way with seasonings of un-pretentious humour.

My first "real" Palm project was to write a fun little program to aid one of my children with sums and multiplication. With this book at hand, I had it done in a weekend and the user loves it.

Extra benefit - like the author's style, this book is not a heavy tome. It can be carried and read in the train, bus, in bed etc. without using both hands.

Thumbs-up!

Summary: Not a bad book
It's worth the asking price. Verive presents the material in a friendly, conversational way. Almost too conversational sometimes, doubling back and changing previous statements. The code provided doesn't exactly match the disc, but you are able to get his intent easily enough. I am a rookie programmer and I ended up forking over the [money] for the full version of NSBasic due to Verive's enthusiasm towards the program. I was able to make a couple semi-complex apps within a few hours of reading the book. Within a couple days I was making some good stuff, using only this book.
This book is a neccesity if you own NSBAsic because it shows how to use the commands and functions not clearly explained in the manual.

Summary: Outstanding Reference for the NSBasic/Palm developer
Dr. Verive's efforts in NSBasic Programming for Palm OS are well deserved of praise. The biggest challenges a technical author has is finding the right audience to write to and then maintaining the interest of that audience. Dr. Verive has done probably the *most* difficult thing a technical author can do: He has written a book for *all* levels of programmer *and* has written it to keep the interest of the reader, regardless of their technical level.

The book is very well organized so that the experienced programmer can quickly learn the features they need to be proficient in NSBasic/Palm. However the book starts by *also* laying down an excellent foundation for the new programmer. Subjects include programming techniques, and instruction on structured programming.

The accompanying CD is a gold mine with lots of demo code and 'template' applications that you can use as the foundation for your own work.

If you're new to NSBasic programming or just new to programming, get this book, you'll have it sitting at all times right next to your NSBasic Language Reference. The combination of the two books you will find invaluable.

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Palm OS Network Programming

Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Authors: Greg Winton

ISBN: 0596000057
List Price: $39.95
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
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Summary: The Definitive Palm OS Network Programming Reference
An excellent, well-written book with great examples that should work for both beginners and advanced users. No other book on Palm OS development [I think I own just about all of them] overlaps in any serious way with the topics treated so thoroughly in this book.

The chapters on non-blocking sockets are an absolute must-read for anybody who wants to develop robust, responsive, real-world applications for the Palm OS.

Two nit-picky items: 1) the book is somewhat more verbose than it needs to be because of irrelevancies about "the Zen of this..." and the "Tao of that...". If you ignore these altogether too-cute sidebars, you'll have a generally more productive and pleasant read. 2) there are some occasional stylistic problems with the C-code. Not errors, but things like assignments to local variables that would never be referenced that show up. The code is also somewhat more pedestrian than that employed by most working C or C++ coders. For the large audience, this might be a plus. I think the style makes it more accessible to VB and NS-Basic types. But it will be a little off-putting to the hard-core.

Summary: THE Palm OS Networking Book to own
This is THE Book to have if you intend to do any type of network programming on the palm. The time you'll save in the first hour will pay for the book.

Not only is it very well written it includes many great examples, covering the simple to the complex. Even if I'm only doing something relatively simple I've found it's always worth it to see how the author's handled the situation in his examples. There's also a lot of information here that's only briefly touched on in the Palm OS Reference or not covered at all.

I'm very careful about purchasing books, usually relying on reference manuals and online docs when I can. However, this is one that I have absolutely no regrets about adding to my library.

Kevin

Summary: Excellent explanations and examples!
I found this book to be exactly what I was in search of - something to clearly explain how to use NetLib along with well documented examples! Greg Winton does an excellent job of taking the reader through the development of an FTP application (explaining NetLib and sockets along the way) - each chapter builds on the previous and introduces new concepts in comprehensible portions.

I admit, like most engineers, that I jumped ahead to the end to see the "whole enchilada", but then went back and reread the earlier chapters. This was still a good approach for absorbing all that is presented in this book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone venturing into networking their Palm. It is well written, concise, and contains insights from someone who is clearly experienced in networking.

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	101 Killer Apps for Your Palm Handheld (101 Best�Series) Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media Authors: Dave Johnson Rick Broida
ISBN: 0072254297 List Price: $24.99 Amazon Price: $15.74 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: Reviews: Summary:

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