New BlackBerry Developers

Posted: July 1, 2009 | | Categories: BlackBerry

My wife pointed me to a BlackBerry Forums post this morning from a developer looking for information on how to get started with BlackBerry Development. The responses were that no good books existed and that all you needed was access to the BlackBerry Developer's web site and the JavaDocs for the Java development tools. I happen to not agree. While RIM has a lot of great information on their web site, most of it was written from the standpoint that you kinda already know what you're doing. There is some development 101 stuff there, but there's no place to find everything there is to know about how to build BlackBerry applications.

That's why I wrote the book.

One of the forum members had posted a link to a list of (very useful) links for a BlackBerry Developer, but they focused on Java Development. when I replied with information about my book, he responded with:

"IMHO this information is far more better than any existing book on bb development. Long time ago when I started with BB development I had only JDE samples at hands. And it (with RIM API javadocs) was more than enough to study this technology."

and simply repeated the link to his list of topics. I have two issues with this:

1. There aren't any existing BlackBerry Development Books
2. Everyone assumes that to start working with BlackBerry Development means beginning with Java

There is still a whole ton of ancillary information that must be understood before you can really understand BlackBerry Development. If you take a look at the book, (it's not published yet, so this number may be off) there is about 300 pages of detailed content before even beginning to talk about Java development and the BlackBerry Java Development Tools. The Java documentation doesn't explain:

1. What the different paths a request can take to a server (WAP, BIS-B, Direct TCP, MDS, Wi-fi)
2. What MDS is and what it does to provide secure access to internal resources and optimize data communication to the device
3. What Application Data Push is and what all the available options are
4. What some of the unique features of the BlackBerry Browser
5. How to debug web applications
6. How to use the different Java development tools
7. How to deploy Java applications
8. How to use the MDS Simulator and the BlackBerry device simulators

and a whole bunch more. You can't just stare at the sample code or the JavaDocs and understand BlackBerry Development. You need more - and that's just what my book provides.

Check it out when you get a chance: www.bbdevfundamentals.com.

Sorry about  the advertisement.

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