I have recently attended a meetup of iseraeli Android developers. It was dedicated to discussing what platform is most attractive to developers. There were two panels, VC and tech people. VCs made the point that choosing platform largely depends on the application and the market. Tech people seconded that, while also calling out what platforms are more difficult for developers then others (Symbian got trashed).
Very good meetup again. I enjoyed it. What made it ever so entertaining that people on stage assumed that developers in the audience are all about to start up their own company or product, or already did so. Even more entertaining, that from a quick poll done by me in the lobby, the assumption is probably correct.
While liking the meetup, and acknowledging the points made and welcoming the response of entrepreneurs in the audience, I want to try and look at this from the pure developer enjoyment point of view.
Assume I were a salaried software engineer coming from traditional Java or .NET or C++ background. Strike that, lets stay with C++. This will provide more of an equal footing. Or if I were a university computer science major, thinking what advance classes to take. In a series of posts, I’d like to review each platform, so that to give re-training developers and university computer science students the developer, not business, overview.
I am going to quickly look at iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7, WebOS, J2ME and Blackberry development. I leave Symbian aside because it is being phased out, and beyond that I am yet to see a person who considers it a match to other platforms in terms of fun to work with.
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