Programming network applications for the Palm OS essentially comes down to using “Berkeley sockets”, the standard Unix application programming interface for networking. Many books exist on the topic; MorganKaufman sent us the C# edition of their book for review. C# is very different from C – is the book still useful?
The book starts out with a quick look at sockets and TCP/IP. It explains what a socket is, how one uses it and where the whole socket thingy ties in with the rest of the TCP/IP ‘world’.
After that, the book moves over to the various kinds of socket classes available in .net(TCP, UDP and raw). While the information given herein cannot be directly applied to the Palm OS, the information on how protocols and sockets interact with one another is very helpful.
TCP/IP sockets in C# then digs into various gotchas and specialties of network programming. The information given herein alone is worth the price of the book for everyone who is interested(and plans to develop some kind of network software)…
The book is well-written and easy to understand even for a non-C# programmer. Of course, copying and pasting code is a no-go; but the concepts still come over clearly.
Overall, this book makes a great read for everyone who has a (very basic) understanding of how TCP/IP works. While it doesn’t contain any directly copyable code and covers many things not found on the Palm OS, the explanation given in this handy booklet makes understanding the concepts behind network programming much easier. The price of 21$ at Amazon’s is o.k….
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I hate to be so critical, but yes… C# is very different from C… but it happens to be almost identical in a great many ways (hence the lawsuit).
Hi Someguy,
full ack on the languages beeing different!
However, all I needed was the concepts behind sockets…and the book explained that quite well.
BTW, stay tuned – I got a few more networking books upcoming soon!
Best regards
Tam Hanna
I’d like to see a review of the PalmOS networking book:
http://www.amazon.com/Palm-Network-Programming-Greg-Winton/dp/0596000057/ref=pd_sim_b_4/102-6553289-9872903?ie=UTF8&qid=1178479217&sr=1-3
Seems like it would be a fun read.
There is a simple code from an aplication similar than messenger, a kind of chat aplication.. but so simple for Palm??
Hi,
I tried to get a sample of this book, but O’Reilly apparently doesn’t even stock it any more…at least thats what the press gal told me.
However, I think that the book I shall present soon will make you all happy…
Best regards and sorry
Tam Hanna
Alrighty! That kinda sucks, but I may just head over to Amazon for it. Looks quite alright, imho.
Later!