PRC-Tools
PRC-Tools (a.k.a. GCC) is a free suite of
tools built around the GNU Project's GCC toolchain. PRC-Tools runs on
32-bit Windows and Linux/Unix, and I've heard that there is a port to
Mac OS X under way. If you've programmed with command-line compilers
and debuggers before, you won't have any trouble with PRC-Tools. There
are also several GUI IDEs available
for PRC-Tools.
I think everyone should at least try PRC-Tools, since it's free
and is capable of building any type of Palm application. To that end,
there's a FAQ article that tells you how
to get started with PRC-Tools.
CodeWarrior
CodeWarrior is a commercial package from Metrowerks, with versions for
Macintosh and Windows. It's a typical commercial development environment,
similar to Microsoft's and Borland's C++ environments. It has the
distinction of being the most favored environment by Palm Computing,
simply because they used it to write Palm OS. Most of the sample code
in the SDK requires CodeWarrior, and several of the books out there
only cover CodeWarrior. You can pick up a copy at any of several
programming tool resellers for about $280, or you can get the Lite version
which is limited in various ways.
There's a FAQ article which compares
CodeWarrior to PRC-Tools.
Palm-Hosted C Environments
There are two C environments that run directly on the
Palm: PocketC and OnBoardC. With both
tools, you write your code in a DOC or memo editor. The main difference
between the two, as far as I can tell, is that PocketC generates a
bytecode database that requires a separate interpreter to run, and
OnBoardC generates native PRC executables.
Copyright © 2000-2001 by Warren Young. All rights
reserved.