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In terms of technology, wireless development amounts to knowing something about carrier technology, XML-defined WML (Wireless Markup Language) and some other interesting tools of lesser profundity. Real success in wireless, however, also depends on a whole new mindset.
Ray Rischpater, author of Wireless Web Development, has the necessary mindset and a great deal of personal depth in the subject matter. He describes each technology in just enough detail to allow a programmer/designer to evaluate its applicability; but this isn't enough detail to allow the reader to really build a skillset.
You can run through this book and grasp the outlines quickly. In contrast, The Wireless Application Protocol, by Sandeep Singhal et al. (reviewed earlier this year at http://www.ercb.com/brief/brief.0202.html) explores pretty much the same use cases and tool chains, but in greater depth at every step of the way, making for a long read overall.
Unfortunately, Wireless Web Development contains frequent offhanded and unsubstantiated technical assertions that dangle figures like "50% faster." In general, Mark Twain's advice, "Every place you mean to write 'very', write 'damned' instead, then your editor will remove it and everything will be as it ought to be," may apply to all or most of Rischpater's adverbs.
It's not a bad book. Rischpater is a consultant in the field and has written magazine articles. The book's content is reasonably factual and precise. But it is a first book, and is afflicted with a prose style as wooden as Al Gore.
In any event, the spectrum of issues addressed by Wireless Web Development and The Wireless Application Protocol overlap more than not. Rischpater might advise his client that it comes down to needs and economics. The Wireless Application Protocol is stout at $49.95. Rischpater's book, Wireless Web Development, list $34.95, is lite beer.
-- Jack Woehr
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