Datasheet

Chapter 1: Gathering What You Need to Develop BlackBerry Apps

✓ Device interactions: Your applications use the classes in this category’s

packages (net.rim.device.*) to perform operations that make use

of the various parts of the BlackBerry device, such as using the smart-

phone’s GPS or communicating with Bluetooth devices. In addition, the

classes you use to create every visual user interface object can be found

in this category.

✓ BlackBerry application interactions: You can use the classes in this

category (net.rim.blackberry.*) to interact with the standard

BlackBerry applications. For instance, your app can create an e-mail

message and send it, all without the user having to launch the BlackBerry

Mail application.

✓ Plazmic Media Engine: This category (net.rim.plazmic.*) contains

classes your app can use to deliver audio and video content to your users.

Debugging

The BlackBerry development tools come with a source-level debugger.

However, your own skills in debugging Java software are what matter most.

I assume that in your software application development experience, your

apps didn’t always work perfectly. I’m guessing that you’ve presumably spent

time analyzing code to find where the problems were hiding, and ruthlessly

eliminated them. In general, debugging is still something of an art. Sure, tools

can assist with finding the place where code goes wrong, but you still need

creativity and imagination to know where to start looking. Small applications

are usually easy to debug, but when your app has several dozen classes and

interfaces, bugs find more places to hide.

You can find resources online and in print regarding debugging, as well as

techniques and habits that you can use to make your code easier to debug.

I’ve worked on only a few applications where debugging of some sort was

not necessary, and that includes the sample applications I show you in the

chapters that follow. All of them had quirks and gotchas that required

analysis and imagination to overcome.

Using software patterns

The world of software has been around long enough that a lot of the ways to

solve problems have become standardized. You’ll find that using software

patterns can greatly simplify your code. This leads to code that’s easier to

maintain. Patterns tend to be simple and effective, focusing on delivering a

limited set of functionality within your app. A class in your application that

represents a particular software pattern for achieving a particular objective

is straightforward and easy to test.

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