Hey guys,
I made a posting about this a while ago. First through an indirect question then in a posting where I used the wrong version number. Our app runs on JDE 4.3 and we badly need the new plugin to debug the app through eclipse.
The reply I got in my original post was pretty much speculation, but I was told that RIM were possibly looking to phase out support for older models or they hadn't got round to putting support it. I'm hoping it's more of the latter.
I had a discussion about this in work yesterday and what's amusing is that the beta version supported pre 4.3 JDE versions and the final version does not. If you look on the plugin site, it claims that 4.1 is supported in the technical requirements.
I think one of the main problems here is that RIM are primarily a hardware company and not a software company, so the developers aren't exactly at the front of the queue when it comes to tool support. They could take a leaf out of Apple's book; they make it pretty easy for developers to come in and start developing apps. They've got a GUI editor for creating UI layouts, a decent debugger and a strong technical community as a result of that. It seems to be the reverse for RIM, where developers are thought of last. When the momentum picks up for Android and the IPhone, RIM are going to be a lot of trouble as developers are starting to come to terms with the fact that there are faster and easier ways to develop mobile solutions and their time-to-market windows are far shorter.
I wish the blackberry platform was fun to develop on, but it's getting to be less enjoying as a see other platforms moving forward, very sad.
