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Why would anybody want to program a Palm, using Visual Basic?

Visual Basic has the reputation of producing bulky code. Would you really want to produce VB code for a P800 Sony Ericsson smartphone? or a Treo 600 or even a Pocket PC? Apparently, yes!

We were pointed at this by IT Toolbox. It's a tutorial on using MobileVB in its latest version, showing how to download a trial version, and create a mobile database application, even with some sample code.

MobileVB is "a well thought-out add-in for visual Basic version 6" reports reviewer Clayton E. Crooks II in this tutorial.

Crooks says: "Developing applications for the Palm OS may seem like a daunting task to a VB developer. The traditional Palm SDK requires at least moderate knowledge of the C programming language and has a substantial learning curve."

Further complicating the situation are the memory management requirements of the Palm OS and its specific API references, Crooks says.

"MobileVB makes Palm OS programming a viable option for even novice VB programmers," he concludes.

A free trial version of MobileVB is available at AppForge.

Version 4.0 is "coming soon" with support for Palm OS 5 and several other cross-platform mobile devices, including the new Nokia/Symbian smartphones.