Using Multiple Test Devices

If your application will appear on the Internet, you need to test using multiple devices. It's no longer safe to assume that only desktop users will have an interest in your application. You might attract Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and cellular telephone users as well. This is especially true of a Web application that helps users find a particular kind of information quickly. People often rely on these applications when time is tight and they don't have time to look for a product themselves.

Note Not every developer is concerned about writing applications for every platform—sometimes it's a matter of time; other times it's a matter of skill or perceived need. When an application you write falls into this category, you can still provide a modicum of support for wireless users by directing them to Google Wireless Services at http://www.google.com/options/wireless.html./


It would be nice if everyone could afford to test every application on every device, but that's not realistic for the developer. Sometimes you need to use an emulator to perform the testing because you don't have the real device handy. Fortunately, you can find a vast array of useful emulators on the Internet—everything from the Pocket PC to cellular telephones of all types. Emulators have limitations, but they do make good test devices in many cases. We'll discuss the advantages and concerns of using emulators in the "Working with Emulators" section of Chapter 9.

Sometimes it also helps to have multiple desktop machine setups. For example, you might need to consider how a Web page looks and acts in Netscape versus Internet Explorer. (Theoretically, you can run both browsers from the same machine, but doing so causes interference problems that some developers find distasteful.) Differences in how the browsers react to specific Web page designs could cause problems in your application. In some cases, you'll need multiple machines to perform this kind of testing. For example, you might need to consider how the application looks on a Macintosh versus a PC if your application has broad enough appeal. Obviously, you can still write Google Web Services applications if you don't have a multiple machine setup, but having more than one machine does make development tasks a lot easier and less error prone.