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Java on Handheld Devices?

Posted by Cliff on from the would-you-like-coffee-with-your-palmtop dept.

superfred queries: "I work for a Java-based software company, and have been tasked with researching Java on handhelds...I've managed to dig up information on which handhelds support Java (most of the major ones do), but what puzzles me, is if any company is actually *using* this for any reason (besides Java-based handhelds/phones). The Palm OS has apparently supported Java since the Palm V, but has anyone written any software to take advantage of it? Are there any major software developers working on Java applications for handhelds? It seems like a great deal of effort has been used in getting Java on these platforms, but nothing's really utilizing it."

2 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Possible Uses for Java Enabled Handhelds? by AlaskanUnderachiever · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    OOh ooh! I know! A beowolf cluster of Palm III's running a virtual machine that uses java to play a game of pong! And not just any Pong. Pong with smaller paddles!

    --
    Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
  2. Re:I can't stand... by rpeppe · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    Why? Its so incredibly clean, so much more so than any language I
    have seen (C++, etc).


    compared to C++ you're right, but java really isn't
    the clean language it's hyped up to be.


    for a nice clean language that fits in the embedded niche,
    you should check out Limbo, which
    is a genuinely clean language (designed by the same
    group that designed C).


    the crucial thing about Limbo, though, is that, unlike Java,
    it doesn't try to solve all portability problems in the language
    itself. The Inferno OS effortlessly solves all
    the problems that Java struggles over. It runs fast, packing
    lots of functionality into a small footprint (1MB RAM is sufficient
    to run significant GUI apps), and provides some extremely
    powerful primitives for composing distributed applications.


    we had a little distributed app that a colleague had
    knocked up over a couple of days (two files, 800 lines of code total).
    it implemented a "shared piece of paper" - i.e. all users
    see anything that anyone draws on the app.
    talking to someone that had tried to do a similar thing in
    Java on a PalmOS based device, they were amazed - they'd
    taken months to do the same thing, and it was slow, big,
    and didn't provide as much functionality.


    the real plus side is just how beautiful the environment
    is to program in. it gives you power and doesn't make you
    pay for it via huge and convoluted API interfaces.
    (and that's why it's fast and small too).