Mobile Python: Rapid Prototyping of Applications on the Mobile Platform

10.4. Program Patterns

We have gone through over 100 code examples. The examples have demonstrated a wide array of topics from string handling, GUIs, MP3 players and 2D graphics to GSM locationing, AppleScript, JSON gateways and web services. From one point of view, this book could be considered a large grab bag of interesting things that one can do with a mobile phone.

On the other hand, one could claim that many examples differ merely on the surface level from others. You have probably noticed this phenomenon as well: many new modules and examples that we have introduced might have felt understandable to you at first sight. Even though the module name and, of course, its functionalities were different from what you had seen before, the new example often shared a similar structure with earlier examples.

This book is arranged according to subject areas, such as graphics, Bluetooth and network programming. Given that we believe that most of our readers are more interested in cool applications than theoretical computer science, this grouping felt appropriate.

However, we could have grouped the examples according to the program pattern that they follow. That is, instead of the subject area, we might categorize the programs according to how they are structured internally and how they interact with the outside world.

The following list presents one such categorization. For each pattern, we give a partial list of examples that follow this pattern. Note that a single program may be based ...