Wiley.Mobile.Python.Rapid.prototyping.of.applications.on.the.mobile.platform.Dec.2007 (779889), страница 2
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He has more than 15 years’experience of creative hacking, including data visualization, web searchengines, and machine-learning algorithms. He has been an enthusiasticPythonista since 2000 and he has been exploring and extending the limitsof Python for S60 since 2005. He has used it to implement, among others,real-time image processing algorithms, various positioning techniquesand an urban game for 200 players in New York City.Authors’ AcknowledgmentsWe’d like to express our gratitude to all the people who played a partin developing this book. First, we’d like to thank the editors that workedon this project: Satu McNabb at Symbian; Hannah Clement, AndrewKennerley and Rosie Kemp at Wiley; and Shena Deuchars at MitchamEditorial.
We’d also like to thank Wiley and Symbian, in general, forsupporting this book project. We are glad to be part of it.Thanks also to everyone who took part in the early review of this book:Joe McCarthy, Panos Asproulis, Mark Shackman, Tim Ocock, Timo Ojalaand Jukka Laurila, who also contributed Appendix A.And for creating such an enjoyable and useful thing as Python for S60,we thank Jukka Laurila, the mastermind behind Python for S60 at Nokia,as well as Erik Smartt and Kari Pulli who greatly supported its bringing itto life. We owe an especially large debt to Guido van Rossum, the creatorof Python, for this beautiful and fun language, and the growing Pythonfor S60 community for their engagement and contributions to the mobilespace.We are grateful also to Joe McCarthy for the fruitful discussions wehad and writing an executive book summary for us.
A big thanks goesto Tomi Silander for his experiments, source code and information onrobotics using Roombas and Python for S60.Finally, we want to thank Harri Pennanen, for helping to spread theknowledge about Python for S60 to universities around the globe and hisgreat managerial support for realizing Manhattan Story Mashup.Jürgen’s AcknowledgmentsI’d like to thank David Wood and Symbian for giving me a chance towork on this book project, being able to share my vision of user-drivenxivAUTHORS’ ACKNOWLEDGMENTSinnovation in the mobile space with a larger audience and to make themaware of this great toolkit named Python for S60. This platform can bringso much fun and inspiration to one’s own and other people’s lives.
It’sbeen so much fun to write this book.I am grateful to Professor Timo Ojala for his relentless support duringmy studies and research in which Python for S60 has played a crucialrole from the beginning. I also want to thank Professor Philip Dean forhelping me to set up the Mobile Hub at the Media Lab of University ofArt and Design, Helsinki.My special thanks go to Joost Bonsen, my great mentor during my timeat MIT, who strongly encouraged and supported me to go forward withthis book and writing the initial proposal.Also I want thank Eric von Hippel. At MIT, it was great to get to knowhim and his inspiring arguments about user-driven innovation which Ihave put at the heart of my evangelizing approach to Python for S60 andthis book.I’d like to thank all the students who have participated in my workshopsand tutorials.
Your feedback, needs and inspiration have played a hugerole in shaping my contributions to this book.Finally a few personal notes of thanks: to Steffi, for being patient,understanding and always supportive during the entire time of writing,thinking and travelling; and to my late mom, for helping me finding myown sources of inspiration, motivation and depth in life.Ville’s AcknowledgmentsSince 2000, I have been using Python on the server side for rapid prototyping and as a glue language to handle large-scale scientific computation.As an enthusiastic Linux user, I have become accustomed to systems thatare open, pragmatic and ’shiny, beautiful things that you can poke at andbend to your will’, to quote the head-honcho of Python for S60, JukkaLaurila.
Thanks to his sense of aesthetics, Python for S60 has become oneof those beautiful things – and shiny too!Python for S60 may bring the mobile platform closer to the Internetwith respect to open innovation, mad experimentation and communityoriented development. Jürgen is doing great work on evangelizing thisidea, so I was delighted to accept his invitation to join him in writing thisbook and take the opportunity to share my knowledge about Python forS60 with the readers.Since 2005 I have implemented real-time image processing algorithms,a framework for self-migrating code (with Jukka Perkiö), Bluetooth andGSM-based positioning systems and a large-scale urban game, amongothers, using Python for S60.
I want to thank Henry Tirri from NokiaAUTHORS’ ACKNOWLEDGMENTSxvResearch Center for motivating many of these intellectual challenges andfor his ’Just do it’ attitude, which fits Python for S60 so perfectly.Also, I want to thank Professor Petri Myllymäki and all my colleaguesin the Complex Systems Computation research group at the University of Helsinki, for their no-nonsense, Zen-like insights into varioustechnologies, including Python for S60.Last but not least, a huge hug to my wife Heli Tuulos for keeping meupdated with the latest web techniques and for tolerating my endlessstream of questions regarding details of the book.Symbian Press AcknowledgmentsSymbian Press wishes to thank the authors, Jürgen Scheible and VilleTuulos, for giving us the opportunity to publish this unique book and forworking so hard during the past year.
Without your efforts, publishingthis book would not have been possible.We’d also like to acknowledge reviewers Ian Weston, Mal Minhas,Mark Shackman, Panos Asproulis and Tim Ocock for giving their timeand sharing their technical knowledge. Finally, we’d like to thank PhilNortham who first discussed the book with Jürgen and got the ball rolling!ForewordsGuido van RossumWhile skimming the manuscript of this book, I couldn’t help wantingto whip out my phone and start hacking it right there and then – and itwasn’t just because I was procrastinating on writing this foreword.As Python’s creator, I’m proud that this book uses Python, but hardlysurprised.
Python is simply one of the best languages for exploratoryprogramming, which is what this book is all about. Python is perfectfor the do-it-yourself experiments, prototypes and games that pop off thepages everywhere in this book.Python has been ported to many platforms, but the port to Nokia’sS60 system is in many ways unique: It is by far the smallest platformto which Python has successfully been ported, and it has potentially thelargest number of users. It is also one of the most connected platforms:camera, phone, Bluetooth, Internet and more. All this makes for a veryexciting platform and I’m glad that Jürgen and Ville have written this bookshowing everyone how easy it is to program your own phone!As will become clear when you read through the many examples inthe book, programming a phone these days doesn’t require a degree inwireless communication.
I predict that even people who haven’t written asingle computer program in their life will be able to follow the instructionsin this book, and soon will be writing their own programs to hook uptheir phone to the rest of their life in interesting ways.While this book isn’t a tutorial for the Python programming language,all the concepts necessary for understanding the example programsare explained clearly, so you’ll be at least an apprentice-level PythonxxFOREWORDSprogrammer by the time you’ve finished the book.
At which point youmay want to further test and improve your skills by writing code for a PCor Mac. The free online tutorials available from http://python.org will beat your service then.Programming can be fun, and using Python is one of the best ways tohave fun programming, for your phone or for any other computer!Enjoy,Guido van RossumMountain View, CAJuly 2007Eric von HippelI am very happy to write a foreword to this wonderful book. In it, JürgenScheible and Ville Tuulos teach us how to simply and quickly use aPython-based toolkit to create custom applications for mobile deviceplatforms, such as mobile phones.Jürgen and Ville have long been on a mission to open up mobiledevices to the many millions of us who really want to create our ownapplications for these devices – but who do not have the specializedtechnical skills that have been needed until now.
Today, the situationfacing users of mobile platforms is very much like that faced by musicfans a few years ago. Many music fans wanted to create and modifymusic using digital tools, but few had the programming skills needed todo so. Then along came simple, user-friendly and very capable software,such as Propellerhead Software music toolkits, and many more of uswere suddenly empowered to create our own music using the wonderfulpossibilities opened up by powerful digital tools.In this book, Jürgen and Ville help create a similar revolution in thefield of mobile devices. Using the simple but powerful kit of tools that theyteach us, we can quickly learn how to create and insert custom, Pythonbased programs into ’open’ mobile phones and other devices. Jürgen andVille have themselves used this toolkit to build many useful prototypesand applications.
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