Steve Litchfield, of 3-Lib, has been busy porting his existing OPL applications over to the latest runtime on UIQ. We asked him how he felt the conversion process went, and why he's supporting OPL.
Steve Litchfield: What is remarkable about this conversion is that TimeLog and Fairway were completed in a grand total of just two over man-days of work, thanks to the underlying OPL programming language. Despite the apparent interface differences between the two platforms, the BASIC-like OPL language is sufficiently similar and easy to work that over 90% of program code was lef untouched. Most of the two man-days of development time were spent on tweaking graphics and screen layouts.
What is even more of a testimony to OPL's longevity and usefulness is that much of the Fairway code dates back to the original Psion Series 3a, released in 1995. Over half the lines of OPL code in Fairway for UIQ are identical to those in the Series 3a version. And, as new handheld devices are released, the open source OPL language will hopefully make the jump to these just as easy.
OPL's main attraction for me is that it's the ultimate Rapid Application Development environment. You don't need a huge and complicated SDK to get started. Many of my programs have started life as an idea while out and about, with the first lines of code written and tested there and then, on the palmtop itself. And unlike other high level programming systems, such as AppForge Booster, there's little or no size or performance penalty.
In addition to 'on-device development', OPL can also be worked with in full development kits, with PC-based emulators for the different devices, making it the perfect RAD tool for both hobbyists and professionals.
For more information on 3-Lib, see http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/
Posted by Ewan at March 11, 2024 10:16 AM