Good intermediate guide

A lot of the first hacks of the book might seem old-hat to a Blackberry 101 graduate. But as the book progresses it gets deeper into the BB's relationship with the servers, but not in an overly-complex way. It seems designed toward folks who have already read the manual and want a little bit more, but aren't quite ready to become systems engineers.

Toward the end it describes, again in simple language, how to download the development environment from RIM, and actually start building simple applications, starting with a simple stock quote Java program, with source, that can then be used as a beginning example for further development. In just a few pages a programmer can start with the sample, build an app, and prepare it for both OTA and desktop installation. It is at about the same level as the first K&R C chapter where we were taught how to write "hello world", compile and link, and run our first program. I always do best when they give me and example rather than trying to explain in english how to do it. And Mabes makes that really simple.

If you want to do more than just use the Blackberry, and want some tips on little known tricks, and want to actually write code for the blackberries, without having to read all of "Professional Blackberry" and ALL of the RIM literature, this is a good place to start.

Mike Jalkut, Embedded Systems Compiler Developer

Other Reviews

• A bit outdated
• Blackberry Hacks
• Outdated information for 2009 Blackberry models
• Good intermediate guide