Memoirs of a Developer

Earlier this week my good old BH220 died on me. I had been using it for the last year and it had proven to be quite a cost effective and reliable a model. Its primary uses were as an audio gateway connected to my PC when using skype, and ocasionally for answering mobile calls while I was out (thought that habbit died out pretty soon seeing as the device was too … alien looking).

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Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a new paradigm which was introduced in 2005. The purpose of Ajax is that of giving the illusion that websites are responsive. It achieves this by processing requests which involve the sending and receiving of small packets of data without refreshing the web browser. Ajax is founded on:

• XHTML - A rigid subset of html which is used to mark-up and style the information.
• DOM - The Document Object Model which can be accessed by the client browsers.
• XMLHttpRequest - The object used to exchange the information asynchronously.
• XML - The format used to transfer the data from the server to the client.

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One of the reasons why Windows Mobile devices have such a market advantage in software development is the vast knowledgebase that programmers have access to and the powerful and easy-to-use development tools available for them (such as Microsoft Visual Studio & Microsoft Embedded C++). Symbian development has always been restricted to a narraw range of professional or enthusiast programmers who do not mind programming at a reasonably low level (usually C++). This is mostly due to the fact that setting up a development suite for such a platform and developing applications for this platform requires quite a bit of expertise and most developers give up very early on.

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