Starting to tinker...

[mschwarz@alienmystery.planetmercury.net]

I'm toying with the idea of developing a PalmOS application for recording
transactions and synchronizing with gnuCash.  I've just grabbed the most
recent snapshot of the gnuCash source.  I'm a very experienced (>10
years) Unix C/C++/Java programmer, but I have to confess I know nothing
about Scheme and GUI stuff just has never been my forte (I mostly develop
network protocol software), so gncash is pretty large and intimidating to
just "take on."

I wonder if someone would be willing to steer me at some information so I
don't have to try to understand it all at once (and I would certain take
RTFM or RTFS as an answer!).  Here's what I think I need to know:

1) Database API and/or file structures.  If there is a way for my synch
application to call the same API the user interface does to get account
and transaction information, then I think I should.

2) My experience of personal finance software has been Quicken.  I'm not
trained in accounting, and while I understand double entry bookkeeping in
principle, I'm not sure I know it as well as I'd ought.  I also understand
that gnucash may be set up with double-entry requirements non-existant,
and I wonder what complexitities this might pose for my palm
application.  When double entry is off, can a person name an "account" and
it would be like a Quicken category?  Would I have to load the entire
chart of accounts into the palm application?

As you can see, despite my programming experience, I'm a complete newbie
here.  I *am* going through the documentation in the source package, but
there is a lot and I'm trying to narrow in on my specific needs.  I don't
actually plan to become a gnucash developer per se (although I may have to
do!).  I'm really looking for advice and suggestions from the people who
know the code the best on where I should concentrate my efforts to learn
the code.  Also, I would welcome any suggestions for how the Palm
application should look/feel/work.  If I do get it going, it will be
released under the GPL.  I have no plans to plunder anyone's expertise!

Thank you all for building a great tool that may finally free me of
Windows!

--
Michael A. Schwarz
mschwarz@sherbtel.net