Portability vs Quality

[Ahsan Saeed]

Hi !

When it comes to mobile applications, Java is not 100% portable. Portability is at stake if low level UI components are used or if optional packages like WMA, MMAPI etc are used. This is true, atleast for the time being. Things are changing fast and this might not be an issue in the future...

A better product can be made if we use optional packages or low level graphics. The customer will always want a better product and will want that it runs on maximum devices. This means more work for developers. A better product is the one that is going to sell.

Till now I have been making/suggesting highly portable midlets. But
I've started thinking differently. If I achieve max portability, quality will be compromised. If I go for quality, portability will be at stake.

What are your views on this ?

Ahsan
[ August 14, 2004: Message edited by: Ahsan Saeed ]

[Roseanne Zhang]

If you organize you project good enough, it only takes a build for each phone to make your product both high quality and portable to almost all phones.

When clients download your app, you give them the right one according to the phone type.

Sorry, I can only say this much about it.

[Michael Yuan]

I agree with Roseanne. You can have both portability and quality if you use the right design patterns and project management techniques. That is actually the key skill that an "advanced" J2ME developer needs to have.

[Ahsan Saeed]

I agree with both of you. Infact recently I have done a project that uses optional packages and low level graphics and I was able to run it on many diferent phones with slight modifications.

Anyway when writing this message I had "compile once and run anywhere" in mind

[Roseanne Zhang]

That statement seems still partially valid when we go to the micro world. And so do Newton's Laws, where quantumn mechanics take over.
[ August 15, 2004: Message edited by: Roseanne Zhang ]