Help an old programmer learn new tricks.

Factual Questions
#1

I’ve been cutting code for years. I’m 48yo if it maters.

Nothing for Mobil devices though.

I’m GIS. Esri. ArcMap. I do some front end work to make things look pretty, but for the most part I do a lot of conversion and data mining. I like that.

I’m now a .NET Visual Studio 08 guy. The days of writing code on a text editor are long gone. The .NET world is very new to me.

I would love to be able to write a simple “Hello World” script for my BlackBerry Storm and attach it to an icon. Baby steps to better understand the OS and how to communicate with it.

Any Black Berry Developers on the SDMB?

#2

Blackberry development is done in Java. It has its own subset of the Java language and Blackberry freely provides a JDE for development purposes. The Blackberry JDE compiles to JIL which you can then deploy on to your handheld device.

Go here to check it out. It tells you to download the JDK first, but links you to 5.0. I’d recommend JDK 6.0 instead - you can find it on Sun’s site somewhere. Plenty of examples are included with the JDE download so you should be able to find your way around it pretty easily.

#3

Thanks. I have a bit of poking around to do.

Only Java? I’ve never even seen it. Got a long row to hoe.

#4

Can the blackberry.

Get a WinMobile 6 device. It runs .Net Compact Framework (“CF”) which is all but identical to the .Net you’re used to, at least the WinForms part.

You can install the SDK & templates in your VS08 setup for free & it works just like writing a WinForms app. There is an emulator which runs on your dektop & simulates the mobile device. F5 to debug, just like in WinForms. When you’re ready to go live, you plug the real device into the USB & inject the code & away you go.

It’s almost seamless.

#5

LSL - that sounds great. But…

I like the Storm enough that I’m not going to just toss it so I can get a Win OS.

I had simply wanted to write an app that would turn on the devices LED camera light and use it as a flashlight. Drop an icon on the ‘desktop’ and away you go.

I don’t really need such an app (though it would be very helpful a few times a week when the cleaning staff at my office hides the door stop).

From what I have found, the class or object or whatever that operates the light is not available to developers.

#6

I was mostly kidding, but since we’ve chatted here before about .Net programming I couldn’t pass up the opportubnity for a quick ribbing about the un-wisdom of abandoning the One True Shining Way.
Yes I’m kidding about the OTSW too.

If you do ever have a need to play with WinMobile development, it really is pretty darn slick.

#7

I come here for answers. You respond with riddles. So your answer to my question was complete BS.

You where ‘kidding’?

Thanks. Thanks a lot.