Meditations on Symbian

Moved by the need to develop a simple Series 60 application, I've been trying to figure out if it is at all possible to do Symbian development on Mac OS X. I'm not talking about MIDP, but rather about the raw C++ stuff (which requires a compiler toolchain plus the usual packaging doodads to create .sis files). OPL might be an option, but opl-dev does not seem to deal with audio right now, and I wanted a standalone app...

I've found quite a few HOWTOs for Linux (like the ones over at KI AG) and the GnuPoc toolchain, and the idea of having a full Symbian toolchain on Mac OS X looks feasible, especially if it could be made to work with something like the Zaurus X-gcc cross-compiler (which will generate ARM binaries, albeit I'm not entirely sure if with compatible linking).

GnuPoc also has compiler sources - but I'm not sure if anyone has gotten gcc-539 to compile cleanly on Mac OS X and although I might give it a try, I'm positive there are more able folk out there (it would be nice to integrate it with Xcode, of course - one can always dream).

Update: Some fidding with the compiler sources yielded little of use - they do not seem prepared for hosting on a PowerPC platform... Anyone out there care to try?

Nevertheless, I think the biggest barrier would be the lack of a Series 60 emulator for Mac OS X. For one, I don't have a spare phone to crash.

Oh well. Back to the world at large...

My favorite news item of the day is this one, if only because it confirms two of my pet theories (or three, I'm not quite sure yet). Nevertheless, I don't expect the matter to be settled that easily...

XML and PHP5

Now this is very interesting. I've been waiting for PHP5 for a while now (it's now on final beta), and Simon's post pinpoints a lot of the stuff I needed when I started customizing PhpWiki. Hmmm...

Lower-Cost iPods?

The newest rumor concerning MWSF 2004 is that we'll be seeing low-cost, colorful iPods. Hmmm. Now that would make sense, in both marketing (new low-end, high volume market segment) and financial terms (probably a tidy revenue per unit, plus an iTunes sales driver). And it sort of makes sense to have another "fruity", colorful product in the Apple portfolio, since iPods are so personal and there have been quite a few offerings of colored casings, paint jobs, etc.

I saw LOTR yesterday and have somewhat of a legal bent, so this analysis of Sauron's Offer To The Dwarves (via BoingBoing) proved eerily fascinating.