Interview with Dmitry Grinberg

hongtian

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' H5 ]( i( ^# m: p1 u; vInterview with Dmitry Grinberg                                                                                                By Simon Pfundstein    Email This Post    Print This Post  
Wehave interviewed Dmitry Grinberg, a well-known Palm OS softwaredeveloper. The questions are about Palm’s and Dmitry’s future, enjoy:
What do you think about Palm’s future?
) y8 `8 v  |7 A5 CLegendary companies do not just wink out of existence. So even if allthe “palm is dieing” rumors are correct it will take time. Personally Iam not so sure I am a subscriber to those rumors. Yes they stoppedmaking PDA - the only thing they were REALLY good at. Yes they made treo 600-800 all looking the same. But look - they are still afloat.
Means they’re doing something right. I am most definitely not in thetarget audience. But power users and developers never are. So theirfuture is cloudy. But it is too early to predict huge success or total failure.
Why do you develop for Palm OS and not for Windows Mobile, etc.?
) U/ {+ Z2 Q0 l% K# @It’s fun. WM reminds me too much of windows, which is never a goodthing. Pretty much I develop for whatever platform I use. I use all ofmy software. The titles I release are a strict subset of all theapplications I’ve written. And all of those were written because Ineeded them. That being said, I hate Java. I do not consider it aprograming language, and do not consider its users to be programmers(unless of the top of their head they can tell me what mark-and-sweepgarbage collector is, and whether Java uses it). Also I was never a bigsmartphone fan, and symbian is a smartphone Os. This leaves me withPalmOS and iTouch. Sadly Apple is not being too nice to developers andthe prices have not sunk low enough for me to take interest. But Iforesee some hardware mods and attachments to be made by me for iTouchonce I get one.
/ t( \' R$ m1 i# e0 D+ q$ EWhat do you think are the (now) best mobile platforms and why?
I think PalmOSis. Many will disagree, but my definition of bet likely does not matchthat of the crowd. Best mobile Os is one that makes developers jumpthrough hoops to do things efficiently, instead of pretending to be adesktop and crawl…(WM, I am looking at you). At the same time it shouldbe simple enough to program for, so that developers can jump to itfast. PalmOS is easy to pick up.
Which is you favorite mobile device?
My LifeDrive. A few internal drives, SDHC card, wifi, BT, VOIP. It’slike a perfect smartphone, without all the compromises of smallerscreens and worse battery lives.
" |9 f# \8 C3 o$ c+ j6 vPalm also sell smartphones with Windows Mobile, what do you think about this? Why?
/ x8 p0 x3 n& V3 kThe reality of today’s market is simple: pay the Microsoft tax andenterprises (which have the big bucks) will love you, or roll your ownYAMLP (yet another mobile Linux platform) and watch nobody use it.
' b8 Y, ]8 B' R3 _6 t(unless you once again pay the MS tax to license active sync)
' M; R/ l/ ]" X* M6 aYour future: Do you still develop software for Palm OS or will you change to an
2 n  q* E1 \7 g$ p0 k- I9 m# z8 Jother  mobile platform (Windows Mobile, ‘Nova’, Access Linux Platform etc.)? Why?
: ]5 A" R8 u+ H$ A! HAs announced a few months back, nuRom for lifeDrive and SDHC driverwill be my last projects for PalmOS. I am retiring from it. But thisdoes not quite mean what you think it means.Icurrently am finishing my own OS -DGOS, guess what it stands for :-).It is not based on anything, and written entirely by me. It had apretty efficient scheduler, memory-separated processes, and a reallycool driver system. The exciting part? It includes a PalmOS subsystem.This means it had binary compatibility with all existing PalmOS apps.ALL. Not like StyleTap that sorta-kinda-supports-some-datebook-apps, but full.
' Y6 f) f2 K, h, m' y9 HEven native hacks work. (of course they affect only PalmOs-subsystemapps). I am also finishing a WinMob subsystem, which means WM appsmight run. for now I test on a lifedrive, but soon i will begin searchfor a worthy hardware to really run this on. Since it has no Access,Palm, or anyone else’s code but mine, i am free to release it as I seefit, and i hope I get around to it. This has been in the making behindthe scenes for years and now it is almost done.
What should Palm do to sell more devices?
Make a sexy device that does not scream “I’m a boring middle-agecorporate guy with a brick-for-cellphone so that my boring job canreach me at any time in my otherwise boring life” years back 1src.comforum users suggested a TH-55 cellphone. YEARS before apple did it.
: r5 w6 H) M& j: p: Z+ ?Had palm listened, we’d all be holding pPhones and pTouches now.
/ U- v0 g: w3 N+ H7 uWhat do you think about the sentence ‘Palm is dead’?
I think I mostly covered this above. No one is dead till they are dead.I do not see a reason to be excited about them yet, but at the sametime to reason to give up on them yet. For all you know tomorrow theycould release a VGA wifi, BT, GPS PDA with a stable OS and a gooddesign….just kidding
+ p2 i4 e0 V9 p; T0 p' }Thank you!
: l- Y: o+ x1 C8 kWhat do you think?

[ 本帖最后由 hongtian 于 2009-4-15 14:12 编辑 ]

sammydeng

What time was this interview made?

hongtian

last year...