Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

The documentation rules, it just can be hard to pinpoint your finger on *what* documentation you need as usually there is an overabundance. Even in the most obscure corners of Linux, someone else has done it before it seems. There is very little about which there is *no* documentation (unless some hardware company like nvidia or nokia is being a jerk about it [e.g. battery info]).

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

@jebba

You're right. There really is an assload of documentation out there.

The problem is if you can't find what you're looking for, then there might as well not be any documentation to begin with.

Organization of that documentation is just as important as the information itself.

Maemo has piss poor organization.

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

I had the same problems with Documentation until I realised that Nokia has a grand plan. Qt, although still only a tech preview stage it is light years ahead in terms of support material and API consistency.

Shame Maemo 5 didnt ship with this when it launched but I guess we will see a final build soon.

Check it out http://qt.nokia.com/developer

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

Lots of videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/QtStudios

and docs about QT Creator development tool here:

http://qt.nokia.com/products/developer-tools

That's if you want to do QT development, which is the future of Maemo (QT apps work today too, but will be the foundation with Maemo 6).

-Jeff

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

Here is where I recommend you start:

http://wiki.maemo.org/PyMaemo

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

I've just started working with Maemo and its giving me a headache searching for beginner's information.
This is how I think its best to study, though I haven't gone over all of the material:

1. The first useful guide is the beginner's guide that nokia is hosting (45 minutes presentation) that gives you the theory behind Maemo apps.
2. Go to the developer's guide, Start with "Graphical UI Tutorial" category and start learning about GTK+ (if you're not going to use Qt), I think its more logical to start here because you start with looking at code, and this is the most basic code you need to know.
3. Check out the examples, you can create a new C project with ESBox and use the examples template(you learn about ESBox in #1, I suggest you download the virtual image), then you can see what you've learned in action. Run them all, make sure you understand how they all work.
4. Go over the guidelines for creating your UI, you have many guidelines and general UI info in the first three categories in the Maemo 5 Developer's Guide, they should give you a general idea for what kind of tools you have for building maemo apps.
5. Go to back to developer's guide and go over everything else, like d-bus and the libs, learn more about what they are and how to use them.

I'm not an expert at all but this looks logical to me. like I was tought C#, first I started with hello world, then I learned about the theory behind. Which way do you think is best to start?

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

Seems good, but would definitely go with learning QT, which is usable now and is the future, than learning GTK which will work in the future, but is not the main platform. It's also far easier to learn python than C++, so going with PyMaemo as mentioned above seems to be good advice.

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

The author of the thread said he has C++ experience.

I didn't understand what you said about GTK+, does it not work now?

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

It works now and will in the future. The *base* of applications in Maemo 5 is GTK+. The *base* in the future (e.g. the applications Nokia writes) will be QT. Also, in the future they will be supporting development with QT far more than GTK+, so might as well start there if you're starting from scratch, i would think.

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

Having worked in large and small companies as a programmer, I have to ask: How is that any different from commercial projects?