Getting Started With PhoneGap

In this post, I’ll describe how to install both PhoneGap and the Ripple extension for Chrome and then fire up a “Hello, World” app.  As mentioned in an earlier post, there are two versions of PhoneGap, PhoneGap Desktop (GUI) and PhoneGap CLI (command line).  Here, I’ll be installing Desktop.  First, it’s easier to use and second, from reading the documentation, I get the sense it’s where Adobe will be putting its future efforts.

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The Sieve of Eratosthenes

Yesterday, I reviewed The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics, a book by Marcus du Sautoy.

In the book, du Sautoy explains the Sieve of Eratosthenes, an algorithm for finding all the prime numbers under a given limit.  The concept is surprisingly simple – for a set of numbers less than N, begin with the first prime number (2) and throw out all of its multiples (4, 6, 8, etc) up to N.  Then start over with the next number remaining (3) and throw out all of its multiples up to N.  Some multiples of 3, such as 6 and 12, will have been thrown out in the prior step.  Keep repeating the process until there are no numbers less than N left to be thrown out.

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Evaluating Adobe PhoneGap

In evaluating multi-platform development tools for mobile, I came across PhoneGap, Adobe’s entry into the marketplace.  What makes PhoneGap unique is that apps can be developed using standard web development technologies, such as HTML, CSS and javascript.  What surprised me was the access PhoneGap provides to device-level features, such as the accelerometer, camera and GPS.  I thought that level of access required Xcode, or at least a multi-platform tool like Xamarin, with its reliance on C# and Mono .NET.  PhoneGap apps will even handle push notifications.

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