My Memory Leaks Brandon King's Blog

I’m embarking on a personal journey to become proficient as a developer for all the major phones – iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7.              

I’m doing this as a self-improvement exercise that I hope will also inspire and motivate others to come along for the ride.  On a more pragmatic level, there are also some wonderful opportunities on the horizon for my company, especially in the iPhone realm.  

I don’t have any special advantages in tackling this project.  I feel like I’m a reasonably good .NET programmer, but I’ve never worked with Java or Objective-C.  I’ve done a few mobile projects using the Compact Framework, so I’m aware of challenges like synchronization and limited memory, but my Compact Framework experience might not be of much benefit.  So, I’m starting with a mostly blank slate, which I hope will make my learning experience of benefit to others in the same boat.        

I’ve set some specific guidelines for this journey… 

• To start, create “Hello, World!” programs for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7.
• After that, create a simple but useful application (perhaps time tracking) for the same platforms.
  • Provide equivalent functionality on every phone.
  • Plan for code reuse or easy conversion as much as possible.
  • Follow UI guidelines for each particular phone.
  • Use professional tools but keep an eye on budget (so others can duplicate this experiment for themselves).
  • Use a local database on the phone.
  • Don’t over-architect the application – keep it straightforward due to time constraints. 
  • Don’t take short-cuts (like MonoTouch for iPhone).
• Finish in two or three months.
• Blog about the experience while it’s happening.
• Present to user groups when it’s over, to share what I learned.

I’m scheduled to speak at SharePoint Saturday Ozarks on June 12th, 2010.  I’ll only be a month into my journey at that point, but will be sharing my progress thus far with a (hopefully) patient and tolerant hometown crowd.