Development | .NET Compact Framework

Understanding the .NET Compact Framework for the Pocket PC
Written by Derek Mitchell  [author's bio]  [read 57572 times]
Edited by Derek

      

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The other day I was reading an article discussing Beyond.com's chapter 11 bankruptcy application and the potential sale of some of their assets and not surprisingly the last paragraph was a disclaimer of the sort - "this is a forward looking perspective and makes no guarantee that the events or ideas discussed here will actually ever occur". The reason this comes to mind is that it was not too long ago that I was waxing lyrical about the potential of the eMbedded Visual Toolset (ver 3.0) to change the face of the handheld development arena. I, for one, was very happy that the eMbedded Visual Tool suite provided a one stop development solution for Windows CE instead of using the Windows CE Toolkit that integrated with Visual Basic 6 - something that veteran CE developers will remember. Well change is a constant force in a developer's life and it all to often involves examining the tradeoff between the benefits of a new technology and the cost of the time associated with embracing a new development methodology.

Well - not to put too fine a point on it but I'm here to do that again - wax lyrical - and the reason I touch on the aforementioned disclaimer is that I'm writing this in February and who knows what changes will take place over the next few months. I'll do my best to facilitate discussion on the .NET Compact Framework and SDE forum. The hardware and feature set of embedded systems seems to change on a monthly basis as the new Windows CE devices are released. Subsequently the SDK's and their underlying development methodologies are either being altered or reinvented at an alarming rate. In addition how do you architect a sound development methodology for devices that don't adhere to any particular specification. You guessed it - I'm referring to the Casio BE-300 Cassiopeia, although this device runs the Windows CE 3.0 OS, it does not conform to the Pocket PC specification (plus it's a lot cheaper).

Perhaps there is some light on the horizon for developers in the form of Microsoft's .NET vision which will provide us with a managed code development environment. As I have embarked upon this journey of untangling all the acronyms I have come to a better educated perspective of the components in .NET and the true benefit the environment will provide to developers. I hope to explain as concisely as possible how the .NET Compact Framework will inevitably become the development solution for the Pocket PC.

As a professional developer I have found that one of the biggest hurdles I faced in adapting to the .NET paradigm was sorting out road map of what it all meant for desktop development and subsequently how it translated into the mobile device arena.

The most common .NET terms you will be exposed to by someone evangelizing the vision are:

• .NET Platform
• .NET Framework
• .NET Compact Framework (CF)
• Visual Studio .NET
• Visual Studio .NET Smart Device Extensions (SDE)
• Common Language Runtime (CLR)
• Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL)
• Just-In-Time Compiler (JIT)

The .NET platform is Microsoft's soup-to-nuts OS and application environment. This encompasses the hardware; from Windows PC's to Pocket PC's and tablets; the XML web services which consist of reusable modular components consumed as services (i.e. the building blocks of the language) and the development environments such as Visual Studio .NET. Basically it's the new stable of Microsoft tools and software you would use to build distributed applications.

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