BOOK : PhoneGap Essentials, Building Cross Platform Mobile apps

In my search to an alternative to Flex, I had to explore the PhoneGap way.
PhoneGap lets you embed a full HTML5low web site on a native application.
Used basically, it's an website to application converter.

I had the opportunity to read this book : PhoneGap Essentials, Building Cross Platform Mobile apps
It's important to note it was written in June 2012 : PhoneGap/Cordova is now at version 2.6 while the book is about version 1.5
Oh, and 'Essentials' doesn't mean 'Everything you should now' but 'The minimum you should now'.

I read in only a few hour because it's full of code you can bypass.
Anyway, it was very interesting to read.
Why ? Because I learnt that Phonegap is/was a total mess.
- API not working the same way on all platforms
- documentation not in sync with the code
- a lot of copy/paste to make for a real multi platform export
- trial and error again

I now have to find a book from 2013 which cover Cordova 2.x and see if they fixed all of this.
I really hope because it's already awful to code the html5low part, I don't want to lose more times with Cordova issue.

So, does it worth money ? No longer, all you need to know is on this post....unless PhoneGap/Cordova is still as poorly made as it was in June 2012

BOOK : Enyo: Up and Running

Since Flex is no longer enought to earn money for living (shame on you Adobe), I had to move to something great, wonderful and so much better than OOP : Javascript and its friends HTML & CSS.
The number of frameworks and libraries available is just...enormous !
To select which one is the best for your needs is just impossible...really !
Backbone, Angular, ExtJS, Dojo, ... are surely great ones but I'm not fond of the way to code : add attributes in HTML Tag and inline JS.
Enyo is the only one I found what doesn't need this : you only need to code JS and optionaly improve your CSS.
Of course Enyo, in fine, produces the same thing but you, the coder, don't need to code pure HTML and your (web) designer will only produce his CSS.
Coding in Enyo is like coding in full AS3 with CSS.

So, I ended reading this book.
The Up and Running collection of O'Reilly seems to be a "Introduction" collection (like the "Instant" of Packt)  : only 80 pages.
I read it on my ebook reader but it should be read on a full PDF Reader (desktop or tablet) because there is a lot of link to follow : code is available at JSFiddle.

You should know all the information available on this book is available on Enyo website.
You'll even find more details on the website, and, most of the times, in a easy to read form, which made Enyo's docs one of the best documentation for a javascript framework I read.
I'm still trying to understand what backbone is for example

So why read this book ? Because Roy Sutton wrote it in a way which gives you the feelings you became an Enyo ninja in 1 day ! :)
You could save 8$ and just read Enyo's doc but it would take you longer to understand some points (like kinds and a layout).

I was really interested in Enyo before I read this book, I'm now really a fan.
You'll need to read more on Enyo website to really become a ninja (the install/debug/deploy part in the book is just unuseful as-is) but thanks to this book, I'm now ready to fight with the language I hate the most after VBA.

BOOK : Architecting Mobile Solutions for the Enterprise

In my quest for a professional look at the mobile industry, I read Architecting Mobile Solutions for the Entreprise by Dino Esposito.
You should note it's published by Microsoft Press and almost every sample are in ASP.NET coded in Visual Studio.
This book also states than, in june 2012, the 3 major mobile plateforms are iOS, Android and Windows Phone...hilarious !

The first part is a gold one, exactly what I was looking for : what shoud be your mobile strategy.
The second part is all about online mobile sites using JQuery, WURLF ...and ASP.NET. Interesting but nothing new and JQuery isn't the best framework to use for mobile websites.
The third part explains briefly how to code for the 3 "major" platforms using native, html or .NET (!) : a very bad intro to each platform so skip it.
Hopefully, it starts with a beautiful gem : "Patterns of Mobile Application Development".

So, perhaps 20-30% of the book should really be read : full part one and chapter 7.
Does it worth the money ? No, even if it's the only PRINTED book available on mobile strategy.
Buy it at half price, used or find it on your local library.

On a side note, it was a pain to read on my ebook reader because the PDF was not optimized : it takes up to 3 minutes to load the cover page and up to 30 seconds to move to the next page. It's the first time I had such problem.

BOOK : Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex & Java

I read this book looking for advanced topics on Flex.
Since Flex<->Java is a totally unknown world to me, it thought it was a good one (in fact, it was the only one at the time I got it)

Unfortunatly, only 2 of the 15 chapters were really interesting for me.
Why ? it's too much for people ALREADY knowing Java, so I was totally lost on some of the more technical parts.
I would say it's on my own fault, it's in the title "Flex AND Java"....

So if you're not in Java part (yet), this book is still interesting for these chapters

Chapter 7 : How to simulate LiveCycle without LiveCycle ?
I made some test using AMFPHP and I would say it's the very intersting way to make RPC.
Plus you could switch to BlazeDS/LCDS more easily
Just a warning, the way they make their own Flex component to be more 'destination-aware' friendly is, for my point of view, too much dependent on your application.


Chapter 10 : How to handle REAL application ?
VERY important subject I don't see much coverage on.
You'll see where are the limits of the Flex linking process and how it can't be optimized at its much but not fixed...I so miss .DLL :(


So, if you found it on a libray for some bucks, get it....else I don't think it's that valuable to buy this 70$ book UNLESS you're a Java pro too

BOOK : Professional Android Application Development

I was looking for a book to learn 'what can be done' with Android...without reading the SDK documentation.
This book is an introduction to Android development, with a lot of examples.
The author even talks about locked features, if Google ever reenable them.

So good book for an introduction but not for developement...for me the title (Professional Development) is wrong.
It's more for CTO than for developers.
It was a good surprise because it's exactly what I was looking for but I'll need another one if I ever want to develop something.

Book : Foundation Flash Applications for Mobile Devices

Foundation Flash Applications for Mobile Devices

Since February, I'm reading this Friends of ED's book about Flash Lite.

Very interesting, it's made for any level of developper.

Since I mainly use AS2, I'm more than happy to see good samples and instructions on 'little' AS1 for Flash Lite 1.x

I'm using the eBook version but it seems it deserves the paper one...perhaps later