CPOC strengths and weaknesses

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CPOC is not a complete functional replacement for the Psion C SDK It differs from the Psion C SDK in a number of fundamental ways:

Strengths:

It is cheap (current versions are free!)
A version that runs directly on the Psion 3a/3c is available (although it is more limited than versions of CPOC that are running hosted on other computer systems).
It is easy and friendly to use
It can also be hosted on a number of other operating systems (the Psion C SDK requires a PC running DOS).

Weaknesses:

Limited documentation is provided. To make best use of CPOC you will still need the documentation version of the Psion C SDK
You do not have access to all the Psion specific facilities as the CPOC libraries only support the standard ANSI C environment plus a limited number of the Psion specific facilities.
Psion 3a OOPS style programming is not supported.
Psion 3a DYL's (Dynamic Link Libraries) cannot be produced
Psion resource files are not supported. This is one of the first constraints that we would like to lift. We would be grateful if anyone know of a good starting point (with C source available) for building a Resource compiler.
The code is larger than produced by the TopSpeed C compiler that is part of the Psion C SDK.
There is no source code debugger as is provided with the Psion C SDK.

I hope that the above is a fair summary of the key points. If anyone thinks that there are other important points to make then please Send email to me, and I will consider adding them to the list.

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