The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5) - Dev tools for developing Pocket PC Application

Dev tools for developing Pocket PC Application

What would you advise for me Pocket PC development ?

In my software shelf I've got

MS Visual C++ or MS .NET

When developing a Pocket PC application how big will
be your RunTime if I choose to use .NET

Dexterity
Friday, February 27, 2004

Just make the choice based on your needs.

Straight C++ is going to give you the raw performance, but involve a lot more donkey work - this will also have the advantage of running on more platforms if that is a requirement (from WCE 3 upwards) and users won't need the .NET runtime installed. IIRC .NET runtime only first shipped with Windows Mobile 2003 and CE.NET

Obviously .NET is a lot faster development wise and has lots of nice libraries to hookup to lots of things extremely quickly and hassle free.

James 'Smiler' Farrer
Friday, February 27, 2004

James :

What about Pocket PC 2002 and prior to that ...

I cannot use .NET for those then ?

Dexterity
Friday, February 27, 2004

To a degree pre 2003 will run .Net, but users have to actively install it. So just ask yourself, if you are writing a 48K shareware solitaire game, will your users feel the runtime footprint is justified. If it's a go, then you can use .Net. Another possibility is AppForge, you get to code VB using the VB6 environment.

Li-fan Chen
Friday, February 27, 2004

We had the same dilemma, and in the end opted for straight Win32 API using the free eVC 3.0 package. True. Development is dog slow compared to eVB or .NET stuff (C#), but our reasons and purpose are probably different then yours. And hence, choosing the right tool for the right job becomes subjective.

Still, we support PPC2002/2003 and required tight, low-level control, with greater compatability and less baggage for distribution (unlike MFC, .NET). We view the platform and its devices as embedded and usually the philosophy in this area screams for SMALL and FAST code. Bloated code has always been an uncomfortable feeling.

Nevertheless, the .NET technologies do intrigue us and will probably consider them more seriously in maybe 2 years; when at which point the majority of the PPC world will have the runtime built in.

sedwo
Friday, February 27, 2004

Same for me sedwo.

I'm having to develop an application that runs from Windows CE 3 right upto the latest CE.Net so embedded Visual C++ has been the only option for me.

Being new to C++ it's been something of a challenge and still ongoing, but at least I am now in the category of knowing what pointers are :)

I do wish I could do it in .NET. The simplicity to hookup to databases etc. is astounding compared to win32 c++

James 'Smiler' Farrer
Friday, February 27, 2004