Very nice to see new PalmOS apps being written, and good job on your strategy game.
I co-authored Warfare Incorporated, an RTS originally on Palm devices, if anyone remembers that. We had to pull out all the stops to get the perf and get it small enough to fit.
The article suggests json patch is idempotent, but it isn’t idempotent for array mutations. JSON merge patch on the other hand is fully idempotent (in the array case the array is replaced).
That's a fair point, I'll restate: the level of abstraction that developers were exposed to was 95% the same. Exposed message loops, window classes, window messages, unpacking window params, post and send message semantics, painting, single cooperative input queue (window app hanging would hang all apps), and other equivalences.
Once Microsoft agreed to the graphics api change, it was open season to redesign the window manager api because backward compat was moot at that point. The OS/2 window manager api was designed by the same team who designed the win16 window manager apis. There were improvements and a bunch of api change but at the 10K foot level the model was the same - input loop, window messages, and window procs.
This is an important point. Being easier to create means faster to market, faster to create new features, easier cross platform, more value for users in less time. Not all apps can be web based but for those that can be, faster dev time has become a competitive requirement.
I’ve seen the open plan sold as what engineers are asking for, but anecdotally I don’t see them asking for that, so I wonder what drives it. Does it attract people right out of college? (if so, it would be important for recruiting?)
I think it’s an economic reality for for-profit companies that make apps. If company A doesn’t go the html app route, and company B does for the same effective product, company B will have an advantage. It’s almost to the point where if your company app can be developed this way, you must do it this way to stay competitive.
Another reason to go public is because the SEC forces companies with 2000 stock owners (used to be 500 pre-2012) to file public disclosure documents similar to being public, so companies typically go public at that point. I’ve heard that some work around this limit by issuing IOUs indexed to the stock price.
Nice demo. Reminds me of a well done Galaxians clone for Atari 400/800 that used programmable character set animation for the aliens. It was impressive.