Starting out as N900 Developer
 

Hey there, i'm looking into developing an app over my christmas leave for the N900. I posted what i'd like to do in this thread along with a few question which might have been best asked here

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=38351

The point of this post is i'm finding it difficult as a first time linux and n900 developer to really find any guides to help me in and i found the API documents confusing. I'm a developer by trade, I work with Asp.Net and Java so i couldn't be any futher away from Linux and C, however i have used C and C++ before on university courses, so i have some understanding.

What i'm asking for is whether theres some guides i've missed or general information people could give me as a newbie in linux and maemo as everything seems very confusing for me right now.

I think maybe this is one area which could be improved upon to bring in more maemo developers, as I have a friend who was curious about developing for the N900 and got scared away by the confusion of it, as I might have been had it not be for my love of this device. When compared to developing ease of the iPhone and Andriod, the N900 is not that appealing to some leisure developers.

Thanks, Loz.

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

Have you checked out MADD yet? I got it set up today without any problems. You can start by reading here, here, here and here. Which will get you a simple app running :)

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

this is a great start thanks pwngu1n. i'll look into this after christmas day. Being able to develop from windows machines is a great plus for me

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

I can offer you space on a box with a /scratchbox installed already, which may help you get the ball rolling. This offer is open to anyone wanting to develop Free Software for Maemo/N900.

Email me at moe@blagblagblag.org.

-Jeff

P.S. I likely won't be able to get things set up until Monday.

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

If you don't want to write any C/C++ code at all, QML provides you an easier solution: http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2009...e-for-maemo-5/

It's quite stable on my device.

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

I never heard of QML before, whats it like to program?

Cheers for your offer Jeff, forgive my complete ignorance but how would i use this box? Do you remote desktop into it or do i need to upload to it, bare in mind i'm a complete maemo newbie :(

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

On forum nokia are several intresting tutorials to to get started : I'm starting to and that is my main resource:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/Tools_Doc...on/Maemo.xhtml

You can start with the getting started guide:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.n...h_Maemo_5.html

Hope this helps you

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

QML is similar to Javascript.
There is some example code out here: http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2009...eclarative-ui/

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

This is a box you ssh into. Then you run /scratchbox/login and you're in the scratchbox. If you have no clue about ssh, it's probably not for you though. ;)

Re: Starting out as N900 Developer
 

The first thing you should know about Linux/Maemo and Open Source is that there is only one rule: THE DOCUMENTATION SUCKS.
The one exception to this rule is when documentation is non-existent.

The next thing you should know is that everything comes from different places. By this I mean there is a lot of code in Maemo that wasn't written by Nokia. The implication for developers is that you will need to do a lot of searching to find out who wrote what part of what API that you need to access, and where on the internet is the documentation for that.

The whole thing is infuriating so be prepared.