Obtaining the tools of the trade - Programming in C/C++

My personal choice, I'm glad you have made it yours. This is by far, the most exciting and rewarding environment (hmmm, perhaps I am a geek after all.)
 

First off, there are two mainstream environments:

1) Freeware/Shareware: Palm SDK and PRC-Tools
Yes, its free, but how good is it? Well, the gcc is a more stable version of C than Codewarrior - that's the good news - the bad news is there is no IDE (integrated development environment) included with the freeware, so it can be cumbersome to use.
 

Luckily I was able to find a shareware IDE called VFDIDE (available at www.vfdide.com) that works quite well, is cheap ($59 for the highest priced version), and is downloadable (three things I love.) The only thing lacking in VFDIDE is support for high color modes (256 colors max), but it is more than capable of producing professional quality apps.
 

Falch.net's IDE is a bit expensive ($279, but there is a half priced version for students) but seems to be worth it. I purchased it after a few hours worth of examination and will be using it for my next game (starting programming on November 15th, 2001) It gives you a nice skeleton program to start with when you create a new project, the built in debugger is a dream to work with, it handles multi-segmented apps easily, works with the high color modes - pretty much VFDIDE on steroids. In my opinion it is better than Codewarrior, as it is more comfortable to work in.
 

Some tasks, such as multi-segmenting large apps must be done manually with VFDIDE (in Metrowerks a simple click of the mouse will accomplish this, and Falch.net IDE also includes facility to easily multi-segment) but is fairly easy, and I will give instructions for it in the Concepts and Strategies section.
 

You can find free downloads for the SDK, PRC-Tools and the other utilities at www.PalmOS.com/dev/tech/tools
 

2) Commercial: Codewarrior from Metrowerks
This will cost about $500 and is quite the pain to find in a retail store (and cannot be downloaded). Best to buy from www.Metrowerks.com directly and have them ship it to you.
Is it worth it. Perhaps. Personally, I would only recommend using Codewarrior if you already use Codewarrior for other platform developement. I find the Codewarrior interface clunky and prefer the Falch.net IDE. Try both the Falch and the Codewarrior demos before you decide!
You can find a free demo version of Codewerks at www.PalmOS.com/dev/tech/tools
 

Which choice is right for you?
Low budget: Use PRC-Tools with VFDIDE - total cost from $19 to $59
Small budget: Use PRC-Tools with Falch.net's IDE - total cost from $135 to $279
Big budget: Choose between Falch and Codewarrior (Falch recommended) - total cost from $135 to $500
 

Note: Codewarrior supports the most SDKs out of the box (Palm, Handspring, Handera, Symbol, Sony, and Kyocera) with Falch running a close second (Palm, Handspring, and Handera - also supports Sony and Kyocera with minor mods - there is no support yet for Symbol as PRC-Tools does not yet support it) I have not tried using VFDIDE with other SDK's but imagine it would handle anything that PRC-Tools supports.