Rating: 
Summary: Favorable Book Review
Review: I read the Amazon reviews of this book before I purchased it, but I decided to get it anyway after looking at two other books (O'Reilly and ... the green and white one). I figured I could return it if it was as error-ridden and unhelpful as some of the reviewers here would have you believe.However, I have been pleasantly surprised with it. All modesty aside, I'm pretty good with C/C++, among other languages, so I come from a programming background (this may be the great divide). Consequently, I haven't found the examples to be too far off the mark. The only major discrepancies I've found are something the author, or editor, could not have prevented: a difference in OS versions. - example -> the main include is different for PalmOS 3.5 and the PilotMain() definition is different. To be fair to the irritated reviewers, the Constructor application (I'm using a full version of Metroworks CodeWarrios 7) required that a few buttons be pushed that the author didn't point out. But again, this may be a difference in versions since Lite (6?) is shipped on the CD and I'm using the full 7.0. As for the actual content of the book, the author explains the code and includes useful notes and tables throughout the development of sample application. If, and this is a big 'if', you start at the beginning and work your way to the end (i.e. not skipping around too much), you'll find that the tutorial is adequate in 1) explanation and 2) coverage of basics. I suspect that the following are the most common reasons for being unsuccessful with this book:
o Nil-to-no programming experience (and I'm not talking about Filemaker or QBasic here).
o Attention span of a gnat.
o Lazy (requires complete build instructions from ground up for every code sample in the book, etc.) To be fair (again), I'd like to reiterate that I'm using the full version of CodeWarrior (v7.0), so the gripes about inconsistency between example and shipped Lite environment may well be warranted. You'll have to determine that for yourself. Summary: If you have some programming experience, especially with C, and have the time and patience to use the book, you'll find good explanations with supporting code on:
o how to build/install/debug a basic application.
o use many of the UI components.
o use [palmos] databases.
o and exploit a few nifty tricks. Rating: I haven't finished the book, so I won't give it a 10, but it's a pretty decent book, so I'll say 8 or 9 out of 10. That's an 'A'.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a book for the novice!
Review: I saw this at the local bookstore and figured it would be useful. I am relatively inexperienced with C, and I know nothing of C++. I thought this book would be a good introduction to Palm programming. It is difficult to understand as it was not written for a novice (contrary to the claims on the cover).
Rating: 
Summary: Difficult to Read
Review: I won't dwell on the inconsistencies and errors in the source code. I won't even go on about the lack of coherent references or explanations of commands and parameters. However, I must warn anyone thinking about picking up this book that they had better be prepared to do some detective work on their own to figure out the author's examples. What should be step-by-step directions that lead to a working product, are instead only partially complete. Some pretty important steps are left out, and I'd say I've had to go back over the chapters at least several times just to figure out what I (and more importantly THE AUTHOR) left out. It's easy to see the inconsistencies in the code listing versus the author's references to it later in the chapter. It's much more difficult to add in what's missing entirely, especially when I'm just learning this myself. I was hoping for much better.
Rating:
Summary: Quick intro but seems shallow
Review: I'm a professional Windows software developer, but this was my first Palm OS book. It gave me a good, quick introduction, but seems shallow. It didn't take long to read because so much of it is code that should have been cut out and just left on the CD-ROM. Almost every chapter has a full listing of the on-going example. For instance, chapter nine, "Categories and Find", is 73 pages, but 41 pages are the complete code listing for the on-going example! The cover claims that you will "Open This Book as a Novice and Finish It as a Pro", which I think is a major overstatement. You'll definitely know more than when you started (assuming you're a novice), but I really doubt you'll be "pro" material. The included CodeWarrior Lite program is awful. I tried it several times and found it to be frustrating and bug ridden. I'm using gcc instead. So, while this book has gotten me started, I will be looking for something better.
Rating: 
Summary: A book for example-lovers
Review: If you love to browse through example source code, you'll love this book. If you like to be given definitions and references, this book lacks in both categories. It fails to provide definitions to many parameters, and only reaches deep enough into explainations to get you through his example application. This example application, a "Contact Manager" is built from the ground-up throughout every chapter. Litterally half the book is source code, the same application, growing bigger and bigger, until you realize that you've just read a chapter devoted to a drop-down control which was only 5 pages long but the whole remainder of the chapter was the enhancement to his application! Most of the book is devoted to showing you how to use any specific control, but it only explains it far enough to work for his application. If you're new to Palm OS programming, this may be a good book to get simply for all the examples, but not if you need detailed technical explainations of functions and paramters.
Rating:
Summary: Good, solid examples
Review: If you want to pick up a book and be able to program for the Palm OS in a short amount of time, this is the book for you. The examples are solid, and the explanations are good enough that you can take a concept and go with it. Within a week of reading only the first four chapters, I was able to write a Palm OS program that I'd wanted to write for over a year.
Rating:
Summary: Untrue statement about Satellite Forms
Review: In the author's words: "More importantly though, based on my last communication with the Puma people, Satellite Forms requires you to pay a license fee for every Palm you deploy on, which is not practical for most people or applications. Until Puma changes this I believe Satellite Forms will continue to be of marginal practicality."This is only true in the Enterprise Edition and not for the Standard Edition of Satellite Forms. There are *NO* runtime fees for SF Standard Edition.
Rating:
Summary: Title should read "Palm OS Programming with CodeWarrior..."
Review: Please before you buy this one, read this... You should know that this book does not come to you without strings attached. Yes, you do get CodeWarrior Lite, but the author fails to tell you that all applications compiled with this "Lite" version will link in a pop-up screen that appears on the palm device everytime your app runs informing the end-user that your application was compiled with CodeWarrior Lite and can not be commercially distributed! So, there you have it... All the examples in the book are built around CodeWarrior for PalmOS, this isn't the authors fault as CodeWarrior is the offical development tool for PalmOS (see this excellent FAQ for more info: http://www.wademan.com/Pilot/Program/FAQ.htm ) I was thinking this would be no big deal, so I downloaded the free GCC compilers and attempted to compile some of the samples with no luck... it appears the resource files used by CodeWarrior are encripted some how, this makes it very hard to port large applications and it hurts this book in it's coverage of Palm development without any investment. Bottom-line if you buy this book, you'll want (and need) the full version of CodeWarrior which list for around $390. If you don't have this kind of money to invest and plan to use the GCC open-source tools, you should look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Best palm programming book (currently) available
Review: Robert Mykland's new (April 2000) book is a must-have for any programmer seeking a clear and thorough introduction to programming the Palm and Visor devices. The book is well organized, clearly written, and contains sufficient programming detail to be useful for both beginning and experienced programmers. Compared to the (in)famous O'Reilly book on Palm programming this book is a gem. My only disappointment arises from the lack of any material on "conduit" development. Though this is, technically, not a Palm programming topic the hotsync facility is germane to Palm's architecture. For those of who learn better through examples, a chapter devoted to developing a "calculator" program does a wonderful job of walking through a project from start to finish. Metrowerks' CodeWarrior Lite is included in the accompanying CD and a small chapter devoted to tools and solutions directs the reader to other freeware and commercial resources. In conclusion, as an experienced C programmer who is new to Palmpilots, I found this book very useful and recommend it without reservation.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty much outdated by now ... errors and bugs
Review: The book is pretty much outdated by now. The included version of codewarrior only works with Palm OS 3.5 while 4.1 is out. It supports debugging only through the serial interface, many new palms use USB, which will mean you'll need to get a serial to usb or use the emulator. The starter application didn't work from first time. I'm even pretty much reluctant to continue reading. Requires putting the palm into console mode with special key combination that didn't work for me. I have Palm Zire, with Palm OS 4.1, which is a resonable development platform I suppose.
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