For most of the life of Windows Mobile, their were two primary development tools, eMbedded Visual C/C++ (eVC) and eMbedded Visual Basic (eVB). With both of these tools being free, a significant number of hobbyist developers began developing Windows Mobile applications. In fact many of the more innovative Windows Mobile applications & utilities have come from people who develop software as a hobby.
Back in 2003 when the .NET Compact framework was first released, it was only available as part of a Visual Studio 2003. Not only was VS2003 not free but it was rather expensive. This of course made the .NET Compact framework inaccessible to hobbyist developers. With .NET-related technologies so obviously being the future1 of Microsoft development, many hobbyists were concerned that they were being left behind.
Thankfully, the problem has been corrected. The .NET Compact Framework is now incorporated into the freely downloadable .NET Framework SDK and MSDN now includes documentation on how to create a batch file to compile .NET CF applications using the command line utilities.
Hobbyists, have long been a big part of Windows Mobile development. It will be interesting to see what comes from making the .NET Compact Framework accessible.
1Around the that same time it was announced that both eVC and eVB were being discontinued
Posted
Feb 02 2006, 09:42 AM
by
jim-wilson