PLATFORM INDEPENDENCE

The idea of building an application without regard to the hardware and operating system it is designed to run on is a relatively recent concept, though one that is having a tremendous impact on software development. It is also a concept that is getting more and more important with the proliferation of intelligent devices. Clearly, it is a far more prudent allocation of resources to build an application that can run on dozens of platforms and configurations rather than having to rebuild and maintain the application for every device market. Flash and Java (the two technologies I used to build TextTool, the application we will be analyzing in this chapter) are models of platform independence and perfect for the mobile and embedded worlds.

It is important to keep in mind that platform independence is still a somewhat relative term. Generally speaking, it is unrealistic to develop an entire application with absolutely no regard to hardware in the mobile space simply because mobile devices are all so unique. CPU, memory, and screen size on mobile devices have not yet been standardized to nearly the extent desktop computers have.