Mark Wilcox's Forum Nokia Blog

Mark Wilcox's Forum Nokia Blog http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog Random musings on mobile software development... Sorcery-ltd 2009-11-23T17:21:30Z Meet some package owners, but don't forget your towel http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/2009/05/19/meet-some-package-owners-but-don-t-forget-your-towel Lars Kurth, the contributor community manager for the Symbian Foundation, has <a href="http://blog.symbian.org/2009/05/19/towels-jedi-package-owners-and-contributors/" target="_blank">blogged about an event</a> for package owners and anyone who might be interested in contributing code. As he says, there are still places available, so if you'd like to meet some package owners and representatives of other companies that may contribute to the platform in the future, then sign up and join in.  The event is on 25th May (short notice so don't delay), which happens to be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towel_Day" target="_blank">Towel Day</a>.  <img src="http://www.enews.org/blog/_pics/TowelDay.jpg" width="400" height="487" /> Your can sign up via twitter using the instructions in Lars' post linked above, or, if you're not into tweeting then register your interest via email at <a href="mailto://RSVP@symbian.org">RSVP@symbian.org</a>.   P.S. Package owners are typically the technical architects for the relevant packages, so they could be very useful people to meet!   General 2009-05-19T17:45:27Z Sorcery-ltd Another chance to get access to the Symbian developer website beta http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/2009/05/14/another-chance-to-get-access-to-the-symbian-developer-website-beta In my <a href="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/2009/05/05/the-future-symbian-ui-the-most-important-thing-not-discussed-in-monaco" target="_blank">last post</a> I said that people interested in the future Symbian UI should get themselves access to the developer website beta. Unfortunately it's still not ready for the grand public opening, but there's no restriction on who can be let in yet, just total numbers for the time being.  There's another chance for anyone that want's a look to get access today.  There's some interesting new wiki content in there that's worth seeing and a chance to leave your feedback on the forums and shape the future direction of the site. Here are the instructions to get access: How to get a 3rd round Symbian Developer Website Beta Key.. <ul type="disc"> <li>Follow <a href="http://www.twitter.com/symbiandevco" target="_blank">@symbiandevco</a> on Twitter</li> <li>Be ready to tweet between 4 - 6pm BST (8 - 10am PDT) on Thursday 14th of May</li> <li>Send the following tweet out during that time period: @symbiandevco I need a FN #symbian beta key!</li> <li>Receive a message to your twitter within 12 hours containing your login to our beta</li> <li>Good Luck!</li> </ul> If you miss the time window, don't worry, there'll be another opportunity soon. Mark General 2009-05-14T16:00:17Z Sorcery-ltd The Future Symbian UI - the most important thing not discussed in Monaco http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/2009/05/05/the-future-symbian-ui-the-most-important-thing-not-discussed-in-monaco For those that haven't seen it, David Wood has posted about some proposals that Nokia have made to the Symbian Foundation here: <a href="http://blog.symbian.org/2009/04/30/reviewing-the-release-plan/" target="_blank">http://blog.symbian.org/2009/04/30/reviewing-the-release-plan/</a> These include: 1) Qt for S60 to become an official part of the Symbian platform 2) Orbit - a new Qt-based mobile widget set (this is really implementation detail) 3) Direct UI - a replacement for Avkon and the existing applications Yes, you read that right, Qt is proposed to become the new application framework for Symbian devices (from Symbian^4 onwards). Personally I think this is a fantastic thing, and will be all the more exciting because developers with access to a hardware reference platform (hopefully more phone-like versions available by the time the code comes along) will be able to watch the progress of the development and even get involved.  However, it does imply (at least in the current proposal) a significant source and binary compatibility break.  Is this also a good thing?  I think so, but I'm sure not everyone agrees. If you want to know more <a href="http://blog.symbian.org/2009/05/01/tweets-and-betakeys/" target="_blank">get yourself beta access</a> to the new Symbian developer website and look at <a href="http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/FRC/2009-04-23_Inaugural_FRC_meeting" target="_blank">the proposals</a> yourself.  Then discuss the implications on the new <a href="http://developer.symbian.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=26" target="_blank">Feature and Roadmap Council discussion board</a> if you have some useful input to the decision making process. If you want more background info about Qt on Nokia platforms and the general strategy, see the <a href="http://events.nokia.com/developersummit/assets/pdf/NDS09_2904_presentation_Rytkonen.pdf" target="_blank">excellent presentation</a> made by Mika Rytkonen on this subject at the Nokia Developer Summit.  In the same session, the trolls also talked about the future of Qt, so if you're interested in this future UI based on Qt then look out for their declarative UI updates (extension of Kinetic work) over the next few weeks/months.   Please note - these are proposals for Symbian^4 which should ship in devices end-2010 or early 2011.  Avkon isn't going to disappear overnight. :-) General S60 Symbian C++ 2009-05-05T13:03:19Z Sorcery-ltd Qt to be completely free for everyone! http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/2009/01/14/qt-to-be-completely-free-for-everyone Just a quick post to spread the news.  In their recent webinar, Forum Nokia announced their intention to make Qt on S60 free for everyone.  However, from Qt 4.5, things are going even further than that (just announced on the Qt-interest mailing list).  Nokia are releasing Qt under the LGPL (v2.1).  For those that don't know, this is a weak copyleft open source license, which basically means you can use Qt on every platform for closed source commercial development, or open source development (LGPL v2.1 allows automatic conversion to the GPL v2 - they will still be releasing under GPL v3 as well).  The only real restriction is that any changes to the libraries must be released under the LGPL also (usual I am not a lawyer disclaimer here). The other major part of the announcement is that they will be opening their source repositories, hiring more Qt developers and making it easier for others to make contributions - apparently they don't need to get copyright assignment from contributors anymore. Mark P.S. The announcement said this is in addition to their commercial licenses (for those that can't live the the LGPL terms and/or still require support presumably).  I'm not quite sure how this fits with not needing copyright assignment, but we'll see soon enough.    General 2009-01-14T11:49:53Z Sorcery-ltd Qt on S60 Open Source Project - Bluemapia http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/2008/12/17/qt-on-s60-open-source-project-bluemapia Do you like to work on the cutting edge of mobile technology? Are you interested in social networks or location based services using free maps? Want to get involved in an open source project on mobile phones? If the answer to any of those questions is "yes" then maybe this post is for you. Learn about Qt on S60, porting to Symbian OS and open source mapping solutions. Get hands-on experience with the latest <a href="http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2008/12/15/time-for-another-qt-for-s60-pre-release/" target="_blank">Qt on S60 technology preview</a> and help port a social mapping application while you're learning (I find you always learn more and faster when you have a real project rather than just playing with examples). Qt on S60 is fantastic news for S60 developers, even more so since the revelation in the <a href="http://www.forum.nokia.com/Events/Webinars.xhtml" target="_blank">webinar</a> (hopefully it'll be at that link soon anyway) today that Nokia intend to make Qt free for commercial S60 development.  However, we're going to need some good examples of Qt on S60 projects on a variety of scales.  I'm starting work on one of those now, incorporating the other cutting edge trend for mobile social location (<a href="http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1274500" target="_blank">N97</a> anyone?).  Which will mean we also have an example of extending Qt with camera and GPS functionality. <img src="http://www.bluemapia.com/images/logo.gif" width="476" height="84" /> <a href="http://www.bluemapia.com/" target="_blank">Bluemapia</a> is a location based social network for boaters.  There is an <a href="http://www.bluemapia.com/blog/?page_id=8" target="_blank">existing open source client for Windows Mobile</a>, that uses various free maps and other popular open source libraries.  We're planning to port the application (and libraries) to Symbian OS/S60 and re-write the user interface using Qt.  I say "we" because some engineers from Symbian (including Symbian Ambassador Lucian Piros, who you may know from the SDN discussion boards or NewLC), an experienced open source GIS developer, an experienced Qt developer and more, will be contributing to the project.  If you want to learn from some experts then volunteer too and get involved! The idea is that we combine with <a href="http://moss4g.telascience.org/" target="_blank">existing open source mobile efforts in this area</a> and create some components that people can use to build their own (open source) location based apps that use free maps (and maybe also not-so-free maps if/when we've got some appropriate APIs and license terms). The project will be hosted in <a href="https://launchpad.net/bluemapia-qt" target="_blank">Launchpad</a> and to get things going quickly I'm planning a "code camp" for some of the developers in London on 17th January.  If you'd like to come along to that and get involved, or can't come but would like to get involved, or just want to know more then please get in touch - either reply to this post (with a way of contacting you) or email me via the <a href="http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=196" target="_blank">discussion boards</a> (user name <a href="http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/member.php?u=148007">Sorcery-ltd</a>), or just go to the <a href="http://bantora.com/main/show_event/23">code camp event site</a> and register (if you don't have a Bantora account yet you'll have to email me first to get an invite) - places are limited, first come, first served - final numbers must be confirmed by 6th January. Looking forward to hearing from you and working together! Mark P.S. Once we're done porting to S60, hopefully we can also port to maemo and other Qt supported platforms too. General Event Location Based Services Open C S60 Symbian C++ Maemo 2008-12-17T19:59:14Z Sorcery-ltd Multi-language Programming, Python, Flash Lite, C++, Java, Widgets http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/2008/12/16/multi-language-programming-python-flash-lite-c-java-widgets I've been working with some other Forum Nokia Champions and expert developers in the last few months to create some resources for Multi-language programming (mixing your favourite runtimes).  The result is a <a href="http://developer.symbian.com/main/documentation/runtime_environments/multi/" target="_blank">series of papers for the Symbian Developer Network</a>. In them you can find out about: 1) The architecture for applications mixing languages 2) The strengths and weaknesses of various combinations of languages 3) How to combine Flash Lite with C++ or Java (with examples from KuneriLite and Jarpa) 4) How to combine Python with Flash Lite or C++ (with examples from Flyer and a tutorial on writing PyS60 extensions) 5) How to extend WRT widgets   One of the suggestions I made on my blog here before and also in the papers has already been done.  One of the authors of the paper covering Python, Jussi Toivola (aka GameDude) has <a href="http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=152969" target="_blank">ported pygame to PyS60 Community Edition</a>.  Now you can write games with sound effects in Python, taking advantage of the native performance provided by the SDL. Please read and enjoy!  Many thanks are due to Bernd Wiegmann, Felipe Andrade, Ugur Kaner, Jukka Hamalainen, Mikko Ohtamaa & Jussi Toivola, as well as the wonderful folks at the SDN. Mark   General Flash Games Java Python Symbian C++ Web Run-Time (WRT) Widget 2008-12-16T17:03:33Z Sorcery-ltd Symbian getting open source friendly - almost there http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/2008/12/13/symbian-getting-open-source-friendly-almost-there We've had some really great developments for open source on Symbian OS in the last couple of months, most of them have already been reported but I thought I'd do a quick summary and look at what's still needed. We had Open C/C++ to let us write standard C/C++ code on Symbian, now we've got Qt on the way too.  Thanks to another poster on the discussion boards I can now point to a public source that says we have <a href="http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/" target="_blank">GStreamer</a> being ported to Symbian as well: <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/40648/S60-Extending-the-Internet-Ilari-Nurmi-Nokia" target="_blank">http://www.scribd.com/doc/40648/S60-Extending-the-Internet-Ilari-Nurmi-Nokia</a> (page 9).  As <a href="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/paul-todds-forum-nokia-blog/2008/12/11/mobile-firefox-for-symbian-just-kicked-off-today" target="_blank">Paul reported on Thursday</a>, <a href="http://www.christiansejersen.com/blog/2008/12/10/fennec-mobile-firefox-for-symbian/" target="_blank">Mobile Firefox is also coming to Symbian OS</a>, and that should mean more libraries (such as <a href="http://www.cairographics.org/" target="_blank">Cairo</a>) coming with it.  The more building blocks and frameworks we get in place, the easier it is to port other applications and libraries. Very rapidly we're getting to the situation where we have a Linux-like user space environment on top of the Symbian OS kernel.  To me this seems like the ideal combination for open source in mobile (I think it's going to take a few years for embedded Linux efforts to make it a serious contender in terms of power consumption and support for phone hardware, particularly at the lower end - single chip devices - and top end - the way SMP is supported needs to be quite different than for the desktop). Now that Nokia's acquisition of Symbian has been approved, the way is clear for the Symbian Foundation and opening of the Symbian/S60 code.  As long as most of the big players in the mobile industry can be the "good open source citizens" that Nokia is trying to be then eventually Symbian & Linux should just be different open OS's that you build all open source mobile projects for.  There are still some things that need sorting out before we get there though: 1) Tools - <a href="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/lucian-tomutas-forum-nokia-blog/2008/12/05/carbide.c-new-and-free-yes-like-in-free-beer" target="_blank">Carbide.c++ v2.0 becoming free</a> is a fantastic piece of news and a big step in the right direction.  However, it's still tied to Windows and the majority of open source developers (and indeed good embedded software engineers in my experience) would rather not use Microsoft OS's if they don't have to (putting it mildly).  Being Eclipse based, Carbide.c++ could theoretically move to Linux, although we'll need the (strongly rumoured but not much publicly discussed) simulator to replace the Windows emulator and some fixes to the SDK.  I'm not sure how Windows-specific the on-device debugging tools are either but I expect some work is required there.  <a href="http://blog.openitstrategies.com/2008/12/symbian-joins-tool-commoditization.html" target="_blank">This same point was made by Joel West recently</a>. 2) Symbian Signed - I'm expecting further change here at some point since no other platform has this kind of clumsy headache of a system; it just can't be allowed to continue for too long.  It would be nice to hear some official comment about reforms, even if they're going to take a while to implement.  The current system is decidedly unfriendly to open source and there's really a need to stick to projects that don't need anything other than user-grantable capabilities. However, I'm really pleased at the pace of progress with the mobile software world opening up.  So much so that I think it's worth working on some big open source projects on Symbian now (and clearly Mozilla agree!).... watch this space for my first one.... Mark     General Open C S60 Symbian C++ 2008-12-13T12:38:17Z Sorcery-ltd Code Camps - a great way to learn a new environment http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/2008/09/15/code-camps-a-great-way-to-learn-a-new-environment I was in Berlin last week at MDD08.  Some of it was good, some not so.  However, one bit that I really enjoyed was the chance to learn some more about Flash Lite and write my first Flash Lite application with some experts on hand to smooth the learning curve. I got this chance at the Forum Nokia code camp.  Here's FN's own Riku Salminen evangelising about Flash Lite. <a id="res_1778" href="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com//data/blogs/resources/300018/11092007051.jpg"><img src="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com//data/blogs/resources/300018/previews-med/11092007051.jpg" border="0" /></a> So, having never written anything in Flash before, and not having hacked a bit of JavaScript (which is very like the ActionScript language used in Flash Lite) for many years, I opened up Adobe Creative Suite 3 and set to work. I had some good advice from fellow FNC Chall3ng3r (aka Faisal Iqbal) and he helped me fix my first bug - so thanks for that.  He's recently released a new version of his tool for Flash Lite developers - <a href="http://www.swf2go.com/" target="_blank">SWF2Go</a>. In one afternoon I created a simple breakout clone where the blocks advance down the screen every 5 seconds.  It isn't finished - it doesn't actually keep track of the score yet or tell you when you run out of lives and give you the chance to start again for instance - but it's fairly playable already.  Of course the graphics are very basic but that's not the point - they can easily be replaced later.  I'd never be able to acheive that much with native Symbian C++ coding in an afternoon, particularly if I'd never written anything before.  I don't think it would have been possible if I hadn't been at the code camp with some experts on hand to help either. <a id="res_1780" href="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com//data/blogs/resources/300018/Simple_game.fla" target="_blank">Simple_game.swf</a> <a id="res_1780" href="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com//data/blogs/resources/300018/Simple_game.fla" target="_blank">Simple_game.fla</a> - use "save target as" on these links if you want to mess with my simple creation, the keys aren't enabled if you play the above link in the desktop Flash Player in your browser. That said, ActionScript debugging is a nightmare - the run-time doesn't produce any errors, it just carries on as best it can if there's a problem.  I found what seems like an obscure bug with where you can and can't access movie clips from using the global this[] array syntax but it took about an hour out of my afternoon tracking it down (Riku & Faisal couldn't even help with that one!) otherwise I might have finished.  I don't think I'm a converted Flash Lite enthusiast after this experience but I'll definitely be having another look at it. If there's a code camp near you, give it a try!  You never know what you might create. Mark   General Flash Games 2008-09-15T23:46:17Z Sorcery-ltd New Stuff for Symbian C++ Developers http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/2008/09/02/new-stuff-for-symbian-c-developers I thought I'd write a quick post to highlight some of the things I've been up to lately.  <img src="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com//data/blogs/resources/300018/multi_book.gif" alt="Multimedia book cover." />First, there's <a href="http://developer.symbian.com/main/documentation/books/books_files/multi/index.jsp" target="_blank">Multimedia on Symbian OS: Inside the Convergence Device</a>, which I co-authored for Symbian Press.  It should be available next month.  Lots of great stuff for multimedia developers, or those wanting to add multimedia to their applications.  It also does a really good job (well I would say that wouldn't I) of explaining the multimedia architecture, so you can understand how it all works underneath. <img src="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com//data/blogs/resources/300018/TuxN95.jpg" alt="TuxN95" />Then there's a pair of paper's I've written for the <a href="http://developer.symbian.com/main/index.jsp" target="_blank">Symbian Developer Network</a>.  One explains <a href="http://developer.symbian.com/main/downloads/papers/PortingfromLinuxPt1.pdf">how to port software from Linux to Symbian OS</a> and the other explains <a href="http://developer.symbian.com/main/downloads/papers/PortingFromLinuxPt2.pdf" target="_blank">how I ported an open source guitar tuner application</a> (with <a href="http://developer.symbian.com/main/documentation/porting/" target="_blank">example code</a>). I may well be talking about this and other porting work I've been doing at the <a href="http://mobiledevices.kom.aau.dk/team_and_organization/events/mobile_developer_days_2008/" target="_blank">Mobile Developer Days</a> in Berlin next week.  There will be lots of interesting things to learn about there, including plenty of presentations and tutorials from Trolltech about Qt on mobile devices.  Forum Nokia are hosting tutorials on Flash Lite and Web Runtime.  You can also learn about Python, sensors and much, much more.  Don't miss it! Mark    General Event Flash Open C Python S60 Symbian C++ Web Run-Time (WRT) 2008-09-02T12:05:01Z Sorcery-ltd S60 Under-engineered? http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/2008/08/07/s60-under-engineered Having quoted a Nokia employee in my <a href="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/mark-wilcoxs-forum-nokia-blog/general/2008/07/18/symbian-foundation-implications" target="_blank">recent blog post</a>, saying that open sourcing S60 was like spreading manure out on a field, I thought I'd share my latest insight with you.  I'm reading <a href="http://www.industriallogic.com/xp/refactoring/" target="_blank">"Refactoring to Patterns" by Joshua Kerievsky</a>; so far, it's excellent.  While I was reading his description of an under-engineered system, S60 immediately sprang to mind - see if you agree: <blockquote> "...While systems you've worked on may not be so gruesome, it's likely you've done some under-engineering.  I know I have.  There's simply an overwhelming urge to get code working quickly, and it's often coupled with powerful forces that impede our ability to improve the design of our existing code.  In some cases, we consciously don't improve code because we know (or think we know) it won't have a long shelf life.  Other times, we're compelled to not improve our code because well-meaning managers explain that our organization will be more competitive and successful if we "don't fix what ain't broke." Continuous under-engineering leads to the 'fast, slow, slower' rhythm of software development, which goes something like this: 1. You quickly deliver release 1.0 of a system with junky code. 2. You deliver release 2.0 of the system, and the junky code slows you down. 3. As you attempt to deliver future releases, you go slower and slower as the junky code multiplies, until people lose faith in the system, the programmers, and even the process that got everyone into this position. 4. Somewhere during or after release 4.0, you realize you can't win.  You begin exploring the option of a total rewrite." </blockquote> So, first S60 phone released mid-2003 following fast and successful development project.  S60 2.0 (2nd Edition) ships in the 4th quarter of 2004, a bit less than 18 months later.  S60 3.0 (3rd Edition) ships at the end of the first quarter in 2006, more than 2 years later following a major struggle to add platform security and move to a new Symbian kernel.  Will we get the next major release (5th Edition as 4th is skipped, supposedly because 4 is an unlucky number in some cultures) in our hands before 2009?  And during this development Nokia are planning to completely switch the development model to open source and are clearly considering starting again, although they don't have time to write a new framework from scratch so they bought Qt!  Is this a fair representation of what's happened?  Comments welcome! Everyone is making a big fuss of the iPhone but it's at step 1 (the 3G version really doesn't add enough to be considered step 2 in my opinion), while S60 is at step 4.  Are Apple going to do better, only time will tell. Of course Joshua Kerievsky suggests a solution to this under-engineering problem - Test-Driven Development (TDD) and continuous refactoring.  There are plenty of teams in Nokia and Symbian who are already using these practices.  However, there's another issue that prevents major re-design that is specific to open systems - binary and source compatibility guarantees.  The developers of the code can't refactor everything they'd like to because they don't actually know who else is using the interfaces and how; they've just promised not to change it.  What's the solution to this?  It seems the one we're most likely to get is parallel interfaces.  Leave the old ones as they are and add new ones alongside them.  Only add new features to the new interfaces so that developers eventually have to migrate anyway.  This means we end up with an increasingly bloated code-base, carrying the remnants of old releases around almost forever (a bit like Windows really).  Is there a better way?  Or are all successful systems doomed to follow this course? I'd love to know your thoughts on this. Mark   General S60 Symbian C++ Testing 2008-08-07T11:45:16Z Sorcery-ltd