Programming for PDA

B

booyaa

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 4, 2001
Messages
335
The counseling center at my university is interested in using PDA's to help clients fill out informational forms, and maybe some other things like medication reminder etc.
I have realtively no knowledge of how exactly PDA's work. I know that there are many PDA OSs out there but I'm not sure where to get started for development.

I'm basically looking for either a good URL or an explanation from someone. (I already consulted google and did not find what I wanted.)

Thanks in advance.
 
I think it depends on which PDA you want to develop for--Palm (and variations) or Pocket PC. I'm in a similar situation; I work for Wayne State University in Detroit and I'm working on a program that will allow our major gift officers (MGOs: fundraisers) to enter donor information while in the field and then transmit that data back to us for updating. We chose Pocket PCs for several reasons:

- MGOs are more familiar with a Windows-style interface
- .NET programming for Pocket PC devices in either C# (my choice) or Visual Basic .NET is not much different than regular Windows programming
- Outlook is our mail client of choice and thus Pocket PC was a logical choice

Anhow, I've found it easy to learn C#, more or less, having come from a C++ programming background and doing a lot of Perl and PHP programming for other projects. C# is what I like to call the baby of Java and C++. It's insanely easy to make GUI programs, too.

Look around msdn.microsoft.com and get some info there. But I think you should decide on the platform first, and take it from there.
 
Thanks a lot, thats exactly what I needed to know.

I use VB.net primarily but C# for web based stuff, sounds like Pocket PC platform is what I will recommend.
 
after downloading the SDK from the ms site, programming for a PocketPC based PDA is pretty mindless if you already know a .NET language. Basically just plug you pda into its cradle and then hit the Start W/ Debugging button in the VS.NET IDE and it'll start up your program on the PDA.
 
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