Coding on the Pandora

[3_bit]

I am going to be learning C and Java soon. Is the Pandora a good device to code on ? How easy would it be for me to access the UARTs or Bluetooth with a program?


I would want to one day code a 3D game and want to know if there's some kind of an SDK for the Pandora? What program would I be using when making 3D objects to be used in said game? Also, what would be the best guide for learning NanoGL/C? (I'm learning Java via a school class)

 

[slaeshjag]

While Java runs, it's not a recommended language for programming on the Pandora.


There's access to a C compiler and a bunch of libs. OpenGL|ES and SDL being twi of them. You probably want to use GL|ES for graphics programming rather than nanoGL.


Accessing UART and Bluetooth shouldn't be any different from what it would be like to access them on a normal linux distro.

 

[TrashyMG]

Well the Oracle ARM version of Java runs okay enough to handle many games and applications. And while it can run Netbeans it's VERY slow as these IDEs are typically ran on systems with tons of system memory, I expect that eclipse would be even worse than netbeans. I suggest a light programming text editor like SciTE and use the command line to compile.

 

[ibisum]

Coding onboard with the Pandora is great. I use my main home Linux workstation to edit files on a shared network mount, and then just push a button to have the Pandora's build (distcc rocks ass!) an executable. These days, I'm mostly coding in Lua for MOAI, but C/C++ onboard the Pandora is just like a normal Linux workstation, in most respects. Remember that you've got a real Linux distro under the hood, and just treat it like a normal machine.


CDEVTOOLS.PND is your friend .. I usually just start it up, leave it running in a shell, but ssh to the pandora to do the builds.

 

[kojack]

These days, I'm mostly coding in Lua for MOAI,

I don't suppose that's Moai for pandora? That would be damn cool (couldn't find it in the repo or forum).

 

[ibisum]

Yes, I'm working on putting MOAI on as many platforms as I can get it on, but I'm also working on MOAI applications-development too, which is fun as hell actually.


MOAI builds almost cleanly on Pandora, but there is a bit of monkeybusiness with the cmake config to get it using GLES locally. Its not hard to do, if you want to do it yourself .. in fact, its probably a good "first thing to do while learning MOAI", because the MOAI host executable is, in fact, portable to a hell of a lot of things. Goto ^.

 

[klapse]

I suggest you pick up a book http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1592000304/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/190-8921997-7186349?redirect=true&tag=cboard-20 or tutorials http://www.libsdl.org/tutorials.php http://lazyfooproductions.com/SDL_tutorials/index.php on C coding and SDL. When you are done with that you will be able to modify simple SDL games and after that, write your own.

 

[Green7]

I started using it with AIDE and DropBox as a mobile Android dev platform.


The screen and keyboard are perfect.


Build quality lets it down.