Java Development

[sandeepkumar03]

Hi All,

Not a direct issue related to Blackberry though but related to Mobile World, a kind of thought process. We have seen lot of discussions going on Internet for Native vs Webapp specially after HTML5 specification came into picture.

We have seen some Cross Platform Development frameworks also. We have lot of options to choose from which sometimes might confuse a user what to use. So many technologies/platforms. I think that would depend upon what would suit the requirement (May not be 100% but may be close to that)

In case of Mobile app which would consume web services or totally dependent on web services would Webapp or Hybrid app be a better option compared to Native? What are your experiences?

I have posted this in Web/Webworks forum also to invite views from Web developers. Here is the link. 

Please share your experiences.

Regards,

Sandeep

Edit: Updated link

[simon_hain]

Could be depending on the complexity of the webservice.
We tried using some of our enterprise webservices with the "wizard" from Air, but did not succeed there.
We do our webservice processing in c++ (on bb10), so it was the descision to write it as a native extension and create the UI in html5, or use it directly and create the UI in Cascades.

I think in the end it depends on what you and your company are most familiar with or want to learn.

We decided to use c++/Qt/Cascades, and while it was/is a bumpy road we are getting along fine now.

[sandeepkumar03]

Yes I guess this would depend upon few factors. I think Native app gives the speed as only data fetched from network/web services to populate data in UI where as Webapp would fetch every thing (even the UI, CSS, JS) over the Network which may not give good user experience especially on slow networks.

Webapp may give advantage of catering to more devices but has to be done smartly to fit UI to different device real estates.

Hybrid app - what I know accesses device capiblities through JavaScript e.g. Apache Cordova. But I have not used this and not sure how efficent this would be.

One instance, where Facebook scrapped their HTML5 app and went for Native App (for iOS)

Regards,

Sandeep

[simon_hain]

no, a html5 app stores ui, css and js locally, it is compiled as a native app.

[sandeepkumar03]

Simon,

Did you mean Hybrid app by HTML5 app?  Where we package Webapp as Native app. Or you are mentioning about the Caching or Offline mode feature in HTML5 app. As in a pure web app codebase would reside on a Server.

I just realized in above posts to see BB10  not supporting Pure Java apps, I can see Java for Android Run time though. That would mean that pure Java apps developed on BB7 would not be forward compatible to BB10. Or may be RIM has a plan to have run time similar to Android runtime to enable run old Java apps on BB10. Doesn't seems to be a good sign.

Regards,

Sandeep

Edit : BB10 Java support note added

[simon_hain]

Yes, i mean "hybrid apps", or, in BB webworks or phonegap etc.
Otherwise it would be a website, i guess

Regarding java apps, you can find my old thread about that here:
http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Java-Development/DevCon-update-BB-Java-is-dead-no-java-suppor...

A html5 app (webworks) would work on both bb java and bb10 (unless there are native extensions, of course).

We are currently porting a bb java enterprise application to bb10 using c++/Cascades.