Let's start BREWing

The wireless team in Aalayance has been doing quite a lot of exciting work. As part of the wireless team, I've been responsible for device testing/debugging/QA on the live cellular networks in the US. So far, we've tested games/apps on two platforms: J2ME and BREW. Each of these have their own positive/negative points. One major plus for BREW in my opinion, is the vast support that Qualcomm continually offers in addition to the useful articles found on the web. I've tried to compile a set of links which I've found very useful.

BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) was developed by Qualcomm as a platform for distributing and running applications on wireless devices.

1. The first question that comes to mind is, What is BREW?
2. The authoritative places to look for BREW news/solutions are the QUALCOMM BREW Home and the BREW Forums. Virtually all the links you will ever need, you will find them here. All the questions that pop up in your mind, they will be answered here.
3. Where do you begin? Here's a Getting Started with BREW pdf that explains the process.
4. Want to get your hands dirty? Download the BREW SDK from Qualcomm's app dev tools page, make sure you have VC++ installed, and jump in with Getting Started with the BREW SDK, Part I and Getting Started with the BREW SDK, Part II articles by Murray Bonner.
5. A guide to Step by Step BREW Application Development clears a few more things. Another Qualcomm knowledgebase article explains How to Create BREW Applications
6. www.developer.com has a BREW home. You can find here, BREW Archives. An article BREWing with C++ investigates the fundamentals of C++ programming for the BREW platform.
7. Now you have a BREW application that runs on the emulator, and you want to know what devices you can build it for. BREW devices sorted by operators, are listed here. The page provides the API version, display information, and links to more device files for each phone.
8. The next step is to acquire an ARM RealView/ADS compiler and compile your C/C++ code for the ARM chipset on the phone. Another knowledgebase article How to Build a Downloadable BREW Application explains use of the ARM compiler.
9. Support is available by writing to brew-support and they usually respond to your queries in 24 hrs. Business/billing related questions are best directed to contact-brew. Also see the Developer Support website.

Aalayance is an authenticated BREW developer, and we are listed on the BREW Developer Directory. We have access to the BREW Extranet thus enabling us to download tools, signature files, digital IDs for the applications we develop. This helps us in testing and finally taking our application to the customers.

I hope this article provides a roadmap to anyone interested in learning BREW. All the links mentioned here are compiled below for easy reference.

About the author: Mamata Desai works as a Software Engineer with Aalayance Inc.