Writing Mobile Code Essential Software Engineering for Building Mobile Applications [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Introduction

In software development, accomplishment means getting the finished software to the intended audience. For mobile device software, this means getting the applications you create onto users' devices. The final measure of the quality of a product is the utility and joy it brings its users. To achieve its goals, a mobile application must actually get to the target devices, and this means it must be packaged and deployed to each user's mobile device.

This book has as its focus the goal of imparting the engineering wisdom and spurring the creative thinking required to enable developers to build great mobile applications. Although packaging and deployment is beyond the scope of "writing mobile code," it is important, and this chapter provides an overview of the decisions you need to make to successfully deploy your mobile application.

Because the details of application packaging and deployment are specific to each device type and programming technology used, this chapter gives only a general overview of the issues involved. Different detailed packaging steps are required for different technologies; J2ME/J2SE, the .NET Compact Framework, and various types of native code technologies all have specific steps that must be taken to package up and deploy applications. Different device types such as PDAs, smart phones, and custom-engineered devices all have software installation processes that vary in their details. Mobile network operators issue phones to their customers and often offer software for dynamic download onto those devices; they have their own policies for software installation and provisioning. Each device technology and mobile network operator has their own associated documentation, often available for download from the Web. This short chapter focuses on the broad outlines and gives you a mental framework in which to think about packaging and deployment issues. Additional links to .NET Compact Framework-specific packaging and deployment articles are listed in Appendix A, "Additional Resources for the .NET Compact Framework"; fairly good online articles and samples exist to walk you through some of the details. In addition, professional installation tools are available that can significantly reduce the number of manual steps involved in mobile device application packaging and provisioning; these are certainly worth having a look at. In any case, it is important to understand what the issues and possibilities are for mobile application deployment.

To successfully deploy your mobile application, you need to answer the following questions:

If you are targeting devices that are not "open devices," are there any requirements from the issuer of the devices that need to be met?

Are there additional components that also need to be deployed for your application to function on all of the devices you are targeting?

How will the end user install your application?

These issues are addressed in the following sections.