Today Nokia Devs welcomes Pankaj Nathani, mobile developer, active Forum Nokia contributor and Forum Nokia Champion from India. Pankaj, known online as croozeus, has recently published a book that covers all aspects of Python on Symbian, from the basic topics to advanced programming.

This book is the result of the cooperation of many people at Forum Nokia and Symbian Foundation, as you can read in the acknowledgment page, and currently represents the best choice to get started with Python on the Symbian platform.

ND: Hi Pankaj, welcome to Nokia Devs! Please tell us a bit about yourself.

To introduce myself in plain words, I am mobile technology enthusiastic from India. Over the past couple of years, I have been poking my nose into mobile software development and have been working on mobile applications and services – primarily on Qt, Symbian C++ and Python – on Nokia platforms. I am enthusiastic about putting innovative ideas for useful mobile applications into practice. People know me as “Croozeus” in the internet/virtual world.

ND: First of all, congratulations for your book “Python on Symbian: Mobile app development made easy”! Could you please share with us about your motivation to write this book?

Python on Symbian is a great way to start creating mobile applications. Python apps look like ‘native’ Symbian apps and can be distributed in the same way. Over the last couple of years the Python runtime (on Symbian) has developed greatly and made the development/prototyping of apps on the Symbian platform “rapid”.

The lastest stable release/version of the Python runtime on Symbian is 2.0.0 – which not only allows developers to concept or prototype apps rapidly with powerful platform capabilities but also allows to create fully functional and “feature rich” applications to be published in the app stores. Thus, Python on Symbian proves to be a great tool for mobile science researchers and developers! Over the past couple of years, I have been promoting Python on Symbian across various channels (www.forum.nokia.com, www.croozeus.com, www.m-science.net, etc) and believed that a book on this topic could be useful material for developers, researchers and students who are ambitious to create innovative apps with this technology!

ND: Can you introduce us to the contents of this book? Where can we get the book from?

The book is a complete reference to Python development on the Symbian platform. The book is intended for readers of all levels of experience, from beginners to advanced users of Python on Symbian. It doesn’t assume any knowledge of Python and covers (almost) everything from basic Python concepts, such as variables, functions and classes, to advanced concepts like platform services and advanced network programming.

The detailed TOC of the book is available here.

The book is available freely at Python on Symbian on Forum Nokia Wiki. If you prefer a hardcopy you can buy it at Amazon book store.

ND: Can you tell us the main advantages of using Python on Symbian?

Due to Python’s special focus on “ease of use” and “simple syntax” it greattly simplifies the application development on the Symbian platform. Python applications are usable as GUI apps, background (“ghost”/”daemon” processes) or embeddable in native applications. The speed of execution of Python apps is nearly equal to that of native apps (except in highly calculative algorithms). On top of this, Python on Symbian being an open souce implementation – its possible to extend its functionalities using C++ APIs.

ND: Is there any PyS60 application you’d like to show to other Nokia developers?

I would like to mention couple of Python apps briefly:

• Birthdays for S60: Calendar writer for Symbian S60 3rd and 5th Edition Smartphones. It lists birthdays from your contacts in chronological order and writes them to your Calendar.
• Nixie Watch: Fancy clock for your mobile device.
• TouchComic: Comic book reader that handles .zip and .cbz ebook formats, with fullscreen view, automatic rotation, zoom function, presets.
• GoogleVoiceForS60: The app uses Google Voice, synchronizing your phone’s contacts with your Google Voice account. It allows you to initiate a Google Voice call with the same options as the website and allows you to send text messages.
• GTranslate: Lets you translate text from English into 37 different languages, send the translated text as SMS, or copy & paste it, for example, into an email or a note.
• Niime: An application that uses the phone’s accelerometer to control your PC – using it as a mouse.
• Unity: Cool puzzle game. The aim is to clear the whole playing area by removing tiles in groups. The more tiles you remove at the same time, the more points you get.

Wordmobi: A client for WordPress which helps you to manage your blog while saving time and bandwidth.

Tracker: A GPS mapping application for hikers who want to track their position on a digitized map.

GTranslate: Translates text from English into 37 different languages.

FuelLog: A fuel consumption and fuel expense monitor for recording, storing, calculating and exporting fueling data and fuel consumption for your vehicles.

ND: Which types of applications you think are most suited for PyS60 development, and which are not?

With the platform services APIs (scriptext module) available, I think PyS60 is best suited for creating feature rich utility applications – which may include multimedia apps, location aware apps, sensor apps, networking apps, etc. I would also recommend using PyS60 for developing mobile games since it supports operations for drawing basic primitives and text, capturing, displaying and editing images as well.

Since Python is a runtime, it would make sense not to develop very heavy computational apps with it. For example, it would make sense to implement “Face recognition app” in native C++/C which may provide better performance.

ND: Are there any limitations or missing features in current PyS60 implementations that you’d like to see solved in next releases?

Well, yes! Python currently depends on Avkon framework for UI, it would be great so see Qt bindings for PyS60 available.

ND: Anything else you’d like to say to Nokia developers?

Nokia provides a variety of technology offerings for application development – Python, Qt, WRT, Java, Flash. Which one are you working on?

Today Maximiliano Firtman, mobile developer with a focus on mobile web, shares his experience and thoughts about mobile web technologies, perspectives and limits with all Nokia Devs readers. If you have further questions to be answered about mobile Web, please leave a comment.

ND: Welcome Maximiliano, please tell us a bit about yourself.

I’ve been a developer focused on web 2.0 and mobile technologies for more than 10 years. I’ve developed apps for many native platforms and I’m now focused on mobile web, joining my two interests (web and mobile). I’m speaker and trainer for mobile technologies and I’m author of many books in spanish. I’m author of the book “Programming the Mobile Web” published by O’Reilly media in July, 2010.

I’m Forum Nokia Champion since 2006 and since that time I’ve created some global projects, like www.mobiletinyurl.com and widgen, a mobile widget generator. I’ve just launched my new blog on mobile web technologies, www.mobilexweb.com

ND: Which platforms and technologies do you use for mobile development on Nokia devices?

I use mainly Java ME and WRT widgets for Symbian. I’ve used C++ for some projects, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t like it. Too much work for small tasks. About IDEs, I always like NetBeans over Eclipse, even for my students. The Java ME plugin for NetBeans is better than Eclipse’s one. For WRT, I mainly use Aptana Studio and sometimes Adobe Dreamweaver, with the WRT free plugin available from Nokia.

For SDK I mainly use Series 40 SDK and some S60, but for S60 I prefer RDA (Remote Device Access) or the device itself. I don’t like S60 emulators, too heavy and it doesn’t work as I might expect.

ND: Which is the state of mobile Web nowadays?

Mobile web is right now in every web developer’s mouth. I was surprised of how many people were interested in my last talk in Santa Clara, California, inside Velocity 2010 about mobile web performance. Every developer is looking for mobile web, but most of them are afraid of the problems and compatibility issues. Following the right practices and having the right knowledge allow any web developer to enter the mobile web era successfully.

ND: How do you see the present and future of mobile widgets?

The present is a promissory future. I really like widget development, called webapps or HTML5 apps in other platforms. However, I’m not seeing a lot of development nowadays. It is still a platform that web developers don’t know about and mobile developer don’t like. The future is better. Many standards and frameworks are appearing, almost all manufacturers have some kind of widget platform in their roadmaps and every application store, like Ovi Store, accept or will accept widgets. So, for many kinds of applications, widgets will be a great platform in the very near future.

ND: Is cross-compatibility, in mobile Web, a reality today?

If we consider cross-compatibility, the ability of a mobile web to run over different devices, it is a reality doing some work on progressive enhancement and server-side content adaptation. If we consider cross-compatibility, the ability of a one source code to render properly on every device, it is not a reality today. There are too many standards and compatibility problems today that forces us to make some extra work for delivering the best possible experience for each device.
Mobile web today coexists with XHTML MP, XHTML Basic, XHTML, HTML 4.01, partial HTML 5, CSS 2.1, CSS 3, WebKit extensions for CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, JavaScript additional APIs. I insist that following some guidelines it is not as awful as it might appears to be.

ND: In your opinion, which are the strenghts of mobile Web, especially when compared to native apps?

* Access to knowledge, best practices, hacks, IDEs, tools and frameworks available today for the web
* Access to web 2.0 APIs easily
* Low time-to-market
* Porting between platforms is easier and simpler than in native apps
* On some platforms, it can be installed as any native app

ND: What is still missing to mobile Web, to get more developers approach it?

Standards between platforms is a big issue. Lack of official documentation from manufacturers is also a big problem. Hopefully my book will help developers to approach mobile web. Other problems include lack of multiplatform frameworks (there are a lot for iPhone or maybe a few for Android, but as we know, they are not the only platforms in the market).

ND: So, in the long run, how do you see the native apps VS mobile web “duel”?

I believe that mobile web will win in some areas, like mobile client for web services, quick and small apps and every apps focused on the web. Native apps will still exist for high-demand CPU applications, augmented reality, games or platform-specific applications.

ND: Which technical resources would you recommend for developers who want to start with Mobile Web?

After the research I’ve conducted for my book, I can say that good technical resources for mobile web doesn’t exist today. You have official documentation from some manufacturers (like library.forum.nokia.com) but they are not useful for multiplatform development. (In fact, Nokia documentation only talks about Symbian web development, nothing there for Series 40 or MeeGo). And some online resources about mobile web are too old. There are some other few books (2 or 3) in the market, but they have some years or they don’t have practical information, only a lot of “should work”, “be careful” but without real tips or information about compatibility. Therefore, with no intention of advertising (as you may know book authors don’t make money for book sales) my book “Programming the Mobile Web” is my best recommendation as a resource to start with Mobile Web.

ND: Something else you’d like to tell to Nokia developers?

Deliver the best possible experience for each device. Remember that not every user in the world is using the latest smartphones, so remember that Series 40 exists, even if you currently don’t have too many users from that platforms.
The final advice: Test, test and test. Use virtual labs for testing, even some free and excellent services, like Nokia Remote Device Access.