The last day of Öredev 2008 started with a keynote by Robert C Martin (the picture above). It feels hard for me to reproduce the content of the keynote. His session about "Clean Code" was a little bit more tangible. He showed an example on how to simplify a method, and decompose into several small methods. The final example was very, very simple. The session gave me a new perspective on how to write good code. Maybe it is time to clean up some of my code?I have never tried to develop for a BlackBerry device. The primary reason is that BlackBerry devices are not very common here in Sweden. Anyhow I thought it would be interesting to know a little bit more about the BlackBerry development. One thing that impressed me was that how Java friendly the device is. Every "native" application is written in Java. As a consequence all the APIs are written in Java. If you were to develop a Java application for a Symbian device you would be limited when writing your application in Java ME, since not all the APIs are reachable from Java. On many mobile devices the Java applications are hidden somewhere deep inside some strange folder. This means that your Java ME applications are some kind of "second class citizen". On a BlackBerry on the other hand, the Java ME applications that you write is as important as the pre-loaded applications. Really nice! If there is a new feature, like GPS, it is immediately available for you as a developer. That is not the case when developing for a lot of other mobile devices. The development environment seems to be pretty mature, including such stuff as memory statistics and a profiler.
A new kid on the block in Java world is the Android Open Source platform. For those of you that have not heard of it; it is a new mobile platform. It is developed by the Open Handset Alliance, which consists of many mobile operators, mobile manufacturers and software companies. The most famous company of this bunch is probably Google Inc. As mentioned it is Open Source, which gives a lot of new possibilities. For example, it could be possible to port it to any kind of embedded device. The Android platform is based on a Linux kernel. On top of that we have a Dalvik VM. You develop your application in Java and compiles to a Dalvik executable. Although it is not considered as Java by definition, you as a Java developer hardly notice any difference. The API is based in Java v1.5, with some unwanted APIs removed. As of today there are not many Android devices available, but inevitably there will be some more devices real soon. The Androiod platform seems to be targeted at the smartphone segment.
Before the last session it was time to attend a lottery draw. To be a part of the lottery you would have to solve a developer scrabble, which I did. Believe it or not, I won a brand new Eee PC 901. A real nice piece of equipment, although I have not tried it extensively. I guess it is nice to have when you are on the road.
Here are the rest of the photos from day 3 at Öredev 2008:
The Android session was pretty cool.
This shows how wrong it can get when a critical application fails. From the presentation by Kevlin Henney.
Kevlin Henney in action.
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