RE: new project added

["Paul Hudson" <phudson@...>]

>> Since Lua can be ported to so many platforms,what's the motivation to
>> reimplement it with Java?
>My idea, and probably Paul's employer's one, is to provide one package 
>to download, whatever the target machine.

Yes, or at least similar. The problem with smartphones is there are three
platforms to choose from (MS Windows, Symbian, RIM) and each of those come
in multiple versions. They're also pretty resource constrained (slow-ish
CPUs and limited memory). Generally, their Java implementations are very
limited in what they can access/do to the phone (RIM is an exception)

So, if you're a large organisation wanting to do sophisticated things with
smartphones, especially deep device manipulation or device management, you
either commit to one platform (and risk getting "locked in", and likely have
problems with your users wanting the others), or you look for some way of
building applications and integrating with your other IT systems that's
platform independent.

This implies the same language on each platform - which? Java's no good (too
limited on some), C/C++ vary hugely (Symbian's is really a C++ variant;
exceptions etc are handled in a completely non-standard way). Python etc
exist, but not on all platforms and the implementation tends to be huge.

So Lua's a good fit. Portable, small, elegant, reasonably efficient. Connect
that to a library that lets you access phone features in a portable way, and
you're off.

Which is what my employer (Intuwave) offered. And failed to make a success
of :(

P. (still job hunting - suggestions on people I should be talking to in the
SE of the UK either about jobs they might have or people/companies they
might in turn suggest are gratefully received)




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