Developers and tablet PC's

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I picked up a tablet pc from MD last week and I'll be putting it through it's paces for the next month or so. I'm trying to figure out if these would be of use to developers, other than as hand-writing enabled laptops. Is anyone out there using a tablet pc to gather requirements, do design, prototyping, mind-mapping, etc? If so, drop me a comment so I can get a head-start on this one!

[Listening to: Crystal Method - Legion of Boom]

Posted: Jan 20 2004, 10:29 AM by dbrowning | with 8 comment(s)

Comments

Ian Blackburn said:

http://www.TabletUML.com is worth a look if you do UML stuff...

# January 20, 2004 11:27 AM

James Avery said:

I have been considering buying a toshiba tablet to use as a main development system, I currently use a Dell Latitude, so I will be interested to hear what your verdict is.

-James

# January 20, 2004 12:02 PM

Richard Norman said:

I planned to do the same thing. One Gotcha I found is that Virtual PC (Virtual PC 2004) does not run on the Transmeta Processor (Compaq T1000) so my emulation plans are out of the door... However I have been using a Fujitsu Stylistic for some time now and since it does not have an attached keyboard (hey nothing beats a keyboard when writing programs... I would hate to write them all by hand) it is not my primary development machine.

My Compaq Tablet (personal) will be primarily for development projects that I take on.

Verdict:

In using the Fujitsu, I love it in meetings (combination with OneNote) and the ability to look at Vision diagrams and database designs is great. With my Compaq, I plan to continue this and actually start to program and design the systems while in the meetings. I don't use paper notes any more just to try to emerse myself into the experience. I definetly use it for reading documentation and reviewing notes. Also the added benifit of being able to email my notes to my manager if he wants to know what happened at the meeting.

If I could get a more poerful system, I would replace my desktop with one (would need docking station too, but that's a nother story) but you need to be prepared for the slight learning curve with initially getting one. After the initial confusion, I definetly see a furure for this product with developers. Particularly for capturing changes in meetings and immediately applying that to the design.

Anyway, hope this helps

# January 20, 2004 12:41 PM