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

Preface

There is a mobile device revolution underway.

It is only very recently that mobile computing devices have crossed the boundary between fixed-purpose communications devices to compelling and extensible mass-market computing platforms. The upcoming decade will see an explosion of capable mobile computing and communications devices providing ever-richer focused information and services to aid people in their daily work and personal lives. It is difficult to overestimate the impact truly mobile and ubiquitous computing will have on the way we work, the way we live, the way we communicate, and the way we interact with the world around us. Intelligent mobile device software is central to the sea change that is underway.

This book is about how to build great mobile device applications. To achieve this goal, it provides a mix of important conceptual knowledge and concrete practical examples. The examples are developed in C# and Visual Basic .NET and target the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework, but the concepts in the book are relevant to all kinds of mobile computing programming technologies and platforms. Visual Basic and C# developers will get the greatest benefit from this book along with specific technical knowledge, but the book is intended for anyone interested in how to build great mobile device software regardless of the programming technology they choose to use.

If I am allowed to hope for a desired book review, it would read: Extremely practical yet thought provoking, Writing Mobile Code will make you a better software developer and get you excited about building new and innovative software for mobile devices. The end readers will have to judge how close I have come to meeting this lofty goal.

The goal of Writing Mobile Code is to create a "different kind of technical book." In discussing the idea for this project with the publishers and other interested parties, the question was posed, "What do you think is missing from most technical books today and what unique value will this book offer?"

What is missing from most technical books today?

Today technical reference materials about software development abound. There is no shortage of facts and reference information on the Web as well as in the racks of bookstores. We live in a world overflowing with information, but in spite of, or perhaps because of this, real wisdom is hard to come by. The interested person must dig though the heaps of coal to search for the diamonds of insight that are surely hidden in there somewhere. Like coal, raw facts themselves are extremely useful but they are not the precious gems we seek. What is missing, and particularly missing from existing mobile software development literature, is an accessible hands-on engineering book that lays out the principles and methods of good mobile software design using concrete examples to demonstrate theory. This book hopes to give readers the gems of wisdom that will enrich them and spur them on to discover the great possibilities that mobile software development holds. The book offers insights with practical examples, encouraging readers to experiment and make their own observations while learning the key elements of mobile software engineering.

What unique value does this book add?

Writing Mobile Code is about mobile software development and is meant to go beyond the bounds of any specific technology. Although the numerous examples offered in the book are written using the .NET Compact Framework, the general principles discussed are valid for all mobile device technologies. Technologies advance rapidly, but good engineering practices and design wisdom grow slowly through the painstaking learning of trial and error. This book is about learning the design and engineering principles that will prove durable even as technology advances.

The goal of this book is not to flood the reader with a multitude of details devoid of greater context but rather to impart in the reader an appreciation for the proper philosophy and design methods for mobile software development. Detailed examples present the facts and figures, but the main goal is to grow in the reader a deep understanding of how to write great mobile software. There will always be more facts to learn, and specific technologies will always evolve and eventually be replaced; this book concentrates on explaining what is unique and interesting about mobile software development and how to build successful mobile applications.

What Various audiences can expect to gain from reading this book:

People presently doing software development for mobile devices
Mobile software development is rapidly moving from being a specialized black art of the initiated to a mass developer-audience community. This book endeavors to offer a rich and, I believe, new perspective on mobile software development that will be valuable both for developers new to mobile devices as well as to seasoned hands in the mobile software domain.

Desktop and server Java, C#, or VB.NET developers considering a move to or moving on to device development
Desktop and server developers already using any of these languages will be immediately able to follow the examples in this book. What this book offers additionally to these developers is a deep understanding of how mobile software development differs from classical desktop and server development. I believe this book will be an enjoyable test drive for these developers and convince them that mobile device development is an arrow they will want to add to their software development quiver. This book will impart in these developers the knowledge and skills necessary to build great mobile applications.

C++ developers looking at moving to a managed runtime language such as C#
The chances are very good that people doing C/C++ development today will be moving some of their programming work to managed-code languages such as C# in the near future. The productivity and reliability benefits are simply overwhelming. This book offers many examples using C#, and C/C++ developers should easily be able to follow the syntax.

Visual Basic developers looking at VB.NET or C#
The examples in the book are written both in C# and Visual Basic .NET and will serve as a good aid to picking up the fundamentals of these programming languages and the runtime libraries of the .NET Framework. Because the .NET Compact Framework is a rich subset of the desktop and server .NET Framework, working through devices can be a fun way to learn these new programming models.

People interested in sharpening their software engineering skills
This book is fundamentally about imparting good engineering practices in the mind of the reader. Those interested in sharpening their software engineering skills for servers, desktop, and device development will be able to do so in a fun and novel way by looking at software engineering from a mobile device development perspective.

Software architects looking to extend existing solutions with mobile device support
Mobile computing offers an interesting new medium with which to extend desktop and server solutions. For this it is important to understand the things that mobile devices are well suited for and those things they are not. By reading this book, software architects should gain a good understanding of the role that mobile devices can play in their solutions.