Chapter 2: Building MIDlets

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Overview

MIDP applications are piquantly called MIDlets, a continuation of the naming theme begun by applets and servlets. Writing MIDlets is relatively easy for a moderately experienced Java programmer. After all, the programming language is still Java. Furthermore, many of the fundamental APIs from java.lang and java.io are basically the same in the MIDP as they are in J2SE. Learning the new APIs (in the javax.microedition hierarchy) is not terribly difficult, as you'll see in the remainder of this book.

The actual development process, however, is a little more complicated for MIDlets than it is for J2SE applications. Beyond a basic compile-and-run cycle, MIDlets require some additional tweaking and a deployment step, either to an actual device or to a device emulator. To show how things work, and to give you a taste of MIDlet development, this chapter is dedicated to building and running a simple MIDlet. In later chapters, we'll delve into the details of the MIDP APIs. In this chapter, you'll get a feel for the big picture of MIDlet development.

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