Review: WebOS Resources

With the release of the Palm Pre it seems like everyone is trying to learn how to develop applications for the platform. I have found some great resources on-line for using if you wish to learn how to develop your own applications.

I will start off by talking about The WebOS Book because that is the first thing I looked at. When I first looked at the book it was in the “Rough Cuts” phase which means the data is bound to be incorrect as they are still working on finalizing the book. The book was a mess when I first bought it, I tried to get through the first few chapters but I could not because the code would not work. In order to make the code work you had to do your research and that was tough to do since the on-line documentation was still in rough shape. I decided to stop using the book and wait until it was closer to a final version before writing a review on it, The other day they removed the book from the “Rough Cuts” phase. As of today I really am hoping that it is not on the way to the printing press because there are still quite a few errors in the book which I have reported in the Errata. Currently I have only gone through the first 100 pages of the book however I have found 15 errors which equates to be 1 error for every 6.6 pages. There are 2 different Errata sections for you to browse. The Confirmed Errata and the Unconfirmed Errata.

I am not going to say that this is a bad book however if you are just starting out you might find it to be quite difficult to make your way through this book. I have had to spend a lot of time debugging code that is in the book and also reading between the lines to fill in some code that was not provided when it should have been. If you do happen to fall upon one of these errors in the book I would suggest you check the Errata to see if someone else has hit the same problem and what they did to solve it. The WebOS Book has been very good at teaching you how to use widgets and explaining why they are having you do what they are. It seems to be very easy to follow. It is structured well so far meaning it is teaching you as if you knew nothing about Mojo or Pre Development which is the way it should be.

As I stated above I am not going to say that this is not a good book. I do however feel they have rushed the process a bit too much because I have never read a technical book that went to production with an error every 6.6 pages. Spelling errors are one thing but when you are missing code or providing code that will not run, that is another. I am actually a bit upset that my printed version will have this many errors. I mean I bought the “Rough Cut” version which means I paid to help find and correct errors. I think this is a way the publishers are trying to save money. They do not have to pay several people to scour the book and find all the errors. People are paying to do that job. I am really hoping that this book is not on the way to the printing press but what can you do?

The next resource that I have found to be useful is Palm’s Developer Website. You can find documentation on the individual widgets as well as the Mojo Framework which will come in handy. The documentation is not in a book form so it is more of a reference you will find yourself visiting quite often.

The last resource has been the most valuable. The Unofficial IRC channels which you can find on the Freenode IRC Network. I have gotten help from several people there. The regulars in #webos are very knowledgeable when it comes to Mojo, if you are looking for deeper knowledge about the internals of the platform you can check out #webos-internals which goes beyond that and dives deep into the internals of the platform. I like IRC for help related questions because generally you get an answer in real time, like instant messaging except your message is seen by everyone in the room. Everyone on the IRC channel have been a great help to me as I go through the learning process.. For that A BIG Thank You goes out to the following people (no particular order): rwhitby, Templarian, blau-mikeDG, oc80z, PreGame, Pre101, PuffTheMagic, anyone else that I might have failed to list here.

One thing that I want to mention which is not a resource is actually a toolkit for use with the Komodo IDE. Templarian created the toolkit and is also working on a plug-in which makes development for palm WebOS much easier. Check it out by going to his website.