Version 2.8 of the CodeWarrior Development tools for Symbian OS, OEM edition is squarely targeted at both the suppliers of the chipsets used to power Symbian OS phones and the handset manufactures who will be creating phones around those chipsets. While the most significant advances in 2.8 is the support for Symbian OS v8.0 Metrowerks have also made a number of other improvements including an updated version of the MetroTRK run-time stop-mode debugging agent, updated command line adapters for emulation and target builds that enable configuration control, an environment editor for making changes within the IDE while also providing full support for Symbian OS versions 6.1, 7.0 and 7.0s.

Creating this new version of CodeWarrior involved several challenges for Metrowerks. Rich Bartlett, Director of Engineering, Wireless Solutions for Metrowerks notes that the updated version of CodeWarrior was created in parallel with Symbian's development of v8.0. While this ensures that there is a high degree of integration between the Symbian OS and CodeWarrior it also meant that Metrowerks were updating the IDE while Symbian were updating the OS and therefore involved a higher degree of cooperation between the development teams than would have been required if CodeWarrior had simply been updated for a completed version of the operating system. Rich also notes that the goal of keeping CodeWarrior fully compatible with earlier versions of Symbian OS also created added complexity to the project.

Amongst the new facilities that CodeWarrior developers will find in version 2.8 is a graphical wizard utility to enable easy switching between SDKs. Rich characterizes the Symbian OS development environment as having always challenged developers because of the complex nature of the build environment and the number of SDKs that developer could be working with. Rich believes the new tools will make life for those creating applications for multiple phones much easier.

There are also improved command line tools which can be used with all the build environments, so for the X86 environment developers doing emulator debugging can be integrated more easily with a Make file system or more typically with ClearQuest and Clearmake version control systems.

When asked whether arriving at version 2.8 meant that a 3.0 version was not too far away, Rich declined to comment on dates. However he did indicate that Metrowerks has a roadmap of future developments for the Symbian OS version of CodeWarrior that will be tracking the major milestones that Symbian has in its OS roadmap.

In many respects the announcement of CodeWarrior 2.8 for Symbian OS was as much about letting third party developers know that CodeWarrior is working closely with Symbian and its licensees and partners as about making those people aware of the new tools set. Rich clearly believes that the close relationship between Metrowerks and Symbian will guarantee the application developer the best possible tools for working with Symbian OS. The message is clearly one that Metrowerks has been with Symbian from the early days of v8.0 and as development kits, SDKs and phones from the handset manufactures come to market CodeWarrior will have the tools to support them.

Web: www.metrowerks.com