Thanks to my new work project with colleagues from IBM CZ I laid my hands on IBM Worklight, which is a PhoneGap on steroids with a server backend. I had no other chance than yet again install my disfavored Eclipse, which powers Worklight Studio and IBM Rational Team Concert.
I has been taught how to use it and ultimately how to build hybrid mobile applications in it. I learned quite a few new stuff about Eclipse.
For Android (and couple of my Java tries) I used IntelliJ Idea Community Edition, even after Google introduced Android Studio, because I don’t like single purpose tools (you can’t build Java apps in A.S.).
Worklight Studio has a support for Android Studio, for building Android app (if you don’t want to install Android Dev Tools in Eclipse), so I installed it as well and after that I discovered It’s easier to make .apk in Worklight Studio itself and Android Studio struggles to launch properly.
But having Eclipse up and running I had yet another urge to try Java web apps (servlets) again. So I installed Tomcat and started new Dynamic Web Project.
Thanks to a video tutorial I had a working “Hello World” in a couple of minutes. I don’t count resolving “HTTP Status 405” error, as it was because of Eclipse code template (that includes super.doGet(req, resp), causing the error).
After that it was quite straightforward. Create bunch of packages, fill them with classes and write some code. It gave me few insights how to improve the PHP framework, towards unification between platforms.
Anyway, we were obliged to put the hybrid mobile application on Windows Phone Store as well, which requires a Visual Studio to compile and debug the WP project. So we purchased that, together with Windows 8.1 Pro (our company computers all has OEM licenses for Win7). As a result, I’ll try to do the same with ASP.NET and it opens the door for better WPF desktop app.