Worth Developing A Contacts App For Pandora?

[timofonic]

QUOTE

Some good ideas there, I am certainly encouraged by some the responses. Yes I know the performance of the JVM on the Pandora is a major obstacle - thats a gamble I am willing to take.



You can use GCJ instead, compiling the Java into native code. There's some limitations in support, but I suposse it will be no problem at all if designing it from scratch.

But really cannot you code it using something like Python? It is more friendly with FOSS.

QUOTE

I agree with those saying this should be a combined app with calendar and todo functionality, unfortunately my new job is quite heavy and I have to take German classes, time is at a premium. So the initial version (which can be tested without a Panda ) will be solely a contacts app...

...ofcourse if anyone is interested in contributing with development, feel free to get in contact with me.



It is OK, but please make it as modular and customizable as possible so others can add features or contribute with the code). In this way the app will be able to grow with the help of more people.

About other apps, anyone could give a list of the best ones and what features they have? And other about the currently available FOSS ones. Maybe a comparison could give some hints for the future development, or maybe there is some perfect app others not know and ready to be ported...

About calendar and alarm functionalities, you can save lots of work by using Remind as a basis. It is available for practically every UNIX out there and is quite powerful. It can run as a daemon, so it is a perfect fit in my opinion (it will work even if using your Pandora for other tasks). You can also put most of the functionality by Remind and using scripts and you, as you can see here.

As for Contacts/address book, you can use some software bits for that, so you will save coding too. There are some options:

- LibRal
- slapd from OpenLDAP. LDAP seems more recommended as has become a widely used standard, specially in bussines areas.

There''s a bunch of software based on Remind:
- Wyrd
- WxRemind


There are other standalone software with similar functionalities, curses or graphical:
- abook\
- XRolyPoly\
- HQ\
- osmo\
- Planner
- Chandler
- kdepimpi
- Pimlico Suite\
- ldap-abook (perl and web based)

You can convert to other formats with some tools:
- oz2remind\
- rem2ics
- p2z
- 2vcard
- lookout97
- Address Book Converter (Java)\
http://jalcorn.net/ical2rem.pl.txt
http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Rem2ics
http://rlucas.net/blog/tools/outlook_to_remind_001.html
Others:
- SyncML
http://tim.stoakes.net/remind/


The only possible problem is using the alarm when Pandora is in standby mode...

You can read some interesting stuff written by maemo people here\

There are lots of apps there and probably they are not perfect for everyone, but maybe looking at them can be a good start of inspiration for a new one for Pandora.

 

[Tom`]

But really cannot you code it using something like Python? It is more friendly with FOSS.

The Java Trap ( gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html ) is no longer really applicable now, since the JDK has been fully open-sourced. I think there is still no JIT option for ARM, but since Python is interpreted too, this may or may not be an issue...

 

[timofonic]

But really cannot you code it using something like Python? It is more friendly with FOSS.

The Java Trap ( gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html ) is no longer really applicable now, since the JDK has been fully open-sourced. I think there is still no JIT option for ARM, but since Python is interpreted too, this may or may not be an issue...


You are wrong, since IcedTea/OpenJDK still have some problems. I can't run jbidwatcher under IcedTea/OpenJDK, for example.

Anyway, Java development and specifications are controlled by a bunch of corporations instead a community or a foundation.

But the reason was not that, you interpreted incorrectly the message. The reason is lack of a fast JVM available for Pandora.


Ontopic, this maybe can be interesting for someone wanting to develop a PIM app: http://users.jyu.fi/~mweber/teaching/TIES4...aemo-remind.pdf

 

[sindbad]

Actually, the reason not to use Java is that it's a pretty bad language. Why not choose a more powerful and expressive one?

The whole OpenJDK fiasco will probably get fixed at some point, so it's not that big a deal.

 

[jlebrech]

could pandora include something like nginx with php or ruby. it would have to not run as daemon only when the icon that webapp is clicked?

 

[Tom`]

But the reason was not that, you interpreted incorrectly the message. The reason is lack of a fast JVM available for Pandora.

The thing is, is Python going to be faster? I know Java is faster with the JIT, but I have not seen any benchmarks on non-x86 systems. Of course, Python has the ability to use native C modules, so this could be a solution.

 

[sindbad]

But the reason was not that, you interpreted incorrectly the message. The reason is lack of a fast JVM available for Pandora.
The thing is, is Python going to be faster? I know Java is faster with the JIT, but I have not seen any benchmarks on non-x86 systems. Of course, Python has the ability to use native C modules, so this could be a solution.I would expect vanilla CPython to still be slower on a benchmark than OpenJDK for ARM or even JamVM.

That said, performance should not be a problem with either language. In the case of java, using Swing for the GUI would make it feel slow, but it can be easily avoided.