mojax
Today, thanks to one of the mailing lists I subscribe to, I learnt about mojax.
mojax is a j2me based AJAX framework for mobile devices. Essentially the moblets (mojax applications) run within a j2me environment, and are not limited to the usual constraints of mobile web applications brought about by the usually dodgy HTML, CSS + JS support within most mobile devices (barring of course the fantastic Opera browser).
The mojax environment exists as an Eclipse plugin, and I'm downloading it right now. I plan on blogging a bit about my experience with it. I've previously developed applications in j2me environments, and Symbian, and haven't really enjoyed the experience with either. I find the Symbian model virtually impossible to get my head around - the resources available on the web for learning fundamentals about it don't really exist. There is not much around that tells you how to structure a mobile application (apart from the split between your UI and your business logic DLLs). With J2ME, I actually didn't mind developing for it. But I now use a mac, and no vendors seem to be producing development environments for it, and that to me is 1) astounding and 2) unacceptable. So, I'm looking for something else.
If mojax proves to be as simple to use as I hope (check out the sample apps - simple stuff) then it might become the environment that Tomas and I use for the application we are developing. More on that later hopefully.
I'll keep you posted.