The Pre/preDevCamp thread

[Derek Gathright]

With the Pre coming out in a few weeks (June 6th) and the SDK hopefully coming out soon afterwards (July-Aug?), figured I'd just get a thread started here for Pre & PDC news.

If you are wondering wtf the Pre is or why it is cool, it's Palm's new phone that is based on "WebOS" and application development is done 100% in HTML/CSS/JavaScript.  It's pretty much a web developers dream device, well... as long as it lives up to the hype.

Anyways... unfortunately it looks like Palm hasn't been so excited about the PDC idea and has battled with the organizers (I'm guessing over the use of the name) so much so that PDC as an official unofficial event appears to be over.  Read Whurley's blog post here, http://whurley.com/2009/05/21/exit-whurley-stage-left/

Needless to say, PDC:KC is still happening whether under the PDC name or not.  Sprint has been amazingly supportive thus far and has even hired a developer out of our community for Pre development (congrats Steven).  Because we still have no idea when the SDK will be released to the public, there's not much we can do about planning specifics for a developer event. Hang tight.

So, just in case the predevcamp.org site is shut down, here's our list of people interested in PDC:KC so far

   1. Derek Gathright @derek (V)

   2. Dan Melton @danmelton (V)

   3. pete thomas @peterthomas (V)

   4. Hillary Watts @twig1gy (V)

   5. Keith Sader @coderigger (V)

   6. Jestin Stoffel @digitaljestin

   7. Alex Fiore

   8. Jeff Smith @jeffisageek (V)

   9. Buck Sommerkamp @bucksommerkamp (V)

  10. Matt Secoske @secos (V)

  11. John Wood @Snailslug

  12. Darby Frey @darbyfrey (V)

  13. Matt Moser

  14. Cheryl Wood @cwood28

  15. Brandon Cummins @mistar5 (V)

  16. Ramprasad Koya @Sprint (V)

  17. Matthew Parmeter @MattParmeter

  18. Jason Bray @jasonbray (V)

If anyone is interested in getting a sneak preview at WebOS development, you can purchase access to the upcoming Palm WebOS book from O'Reilly.  

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596801816/

So who is planning on getting one when they come out in a few weeks?  *raises hand*

[Twiggy]

Well, I just dropped my Treo about 8 times, so looks like I will be
purchasing a Pre too.

On May 21, 4:32 pm, Derek Gathright <drg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> With the Pre coming out in a few weeks (June 6th) and the SDK hopefully
> coming out soon afterwards (July-Aug?), figured I'd just get a thread
> started here for Pre & PDC news.
>
> If you are wondering wtf the Pre is or why it is cool, it's Palm's new phone
> that is based on "WebOS" and application development is done 100% in
> HTML/CSS/JavaScript.  It's pretty much a web developers dream device,
> well... as long as it lives up to the hype.
>
> Anyways... unfortunately it looks like Palm hasn't been so excited about the
> PDC idea and has battled with the organizers (I'm guessing over the use of
> the name) so much so that PDC as an official unofficial event appears to be

> over.  Read Whurley's blog post here,http://whurley.com/2009/05/21/exit-whurley-stage-left/

[Derek Gathright]

8 days till launch!

Here's a good review of the device, http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/05/29/palm-pre-review/

At the Sprint developer sandbox demo today, I chatted with Nathan (Sprint ADP manager) about the Pre & PDC, so to throw out an update... He's going out to SF to talk to Palm next week and will try to get a window of when they expect to launch the SDK.  Hopefully we can get that date which will help in planning PDC:KC.

So to speculate on some details for PDC:KC:

- Will occur on the Sprint Campus

- 1-2 weeks after the SDK launch (July?)

- Will accommodate up to 300 people.

We'll need all sorts of people ready to talk about various topics, such as

- HTML & CSS overview

- Intro to Javascript

- Javascript Frameworks overview (Prototype & jQuery)

- HTTP/REST overview

- HTML5 (Especially HTML5's storage API)

- Application demonstrations

- Mobile Development best practices

- And of course people experienced in PHP/Java/.NET/Ruby/etc... backend services

Hopefully we'll get the major details finalized within the next couple weeks and can begin planning out an agenda.

[Derek Gathright]

Ah, good timing, this just popped up on Twitter.

http://predevcamp.org/2009/05/29/big-updates-from-predevcamp/

PDC has been turned over to some new organizers & Aug 8th has been selected as the date worldwide.  Not sure if that has much of an impact on when KC is or not.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Derek Gathright <drg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Oh yeah, and the next Mobile Friday talk (late-June) will hopefully be Steven presenting on Pre development. Yipee.

[Derek Gathright]

Oh yeah, and the next Mobile Friday talk (late-June) will hopefully be Steven presenting on Pre development. Yipee.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 5:00 PM, Derek Gathright <drg...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Derek Gathright]

Lots of Pre hacking going on over the last few days, and looks like it'll be a really fun device to play around with once I get a chance to set up SSH on mine.

http://forums.precentral.net/web-os-development/184378-ok-rom-comes.html

http://predev.wikidot.com/

Also, Sprint hasn't formally announced it yet, but they're going to hold a Pre developer camp Aug 6th at the Sprint Campus.  From what I understand, attendance will be capped at a few hundred and registration will be required, but it's free & open to the public.  2 days later is when the worldwide preDevCamps will take place, and whether we do one of those in KC on top of the Sprint event or not has yet to be determined.  Depends on interest I guess.

Steven & I have been talking about getting a group together for Pre/WebOS development.  Because the SDK won't be out until july/early-august (best guess), the most we can cover is the publicly available info out there (mostly from O'Reilley's WebOS book) and WebOS stack components such as HTML5, Canvas, etc... Even if you aren't interested in developing for the Pre, HTML5 is supported on the iPhone as well as Android, so the concepts are still the same.

We have 8 weeks before the Sprint event, so we'll have to be fairly aggressive with the scheduling to get 4-5 meetups in before then.  Who is interested?