Hobbyist Developers… Welcome Back to Windows Mobile Application Development

[Kris Kumar]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://pluralsight.com/blogs/jimw/archive/2006/02/02/18535.aspx' target='_blank'>http://pluralsight.com/blogs/jimw/archive/2006/02/02/18535.aspx</a><br /><br /></div><i>"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 &amp; 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 future of Microsoft development, many hobbyists were concerned that they were being left behind. Thankfully, the problem has been corrected."</i><br /><br />I was not aware that Microsoft has posted a how-to article detailing the process to build .NET based applications without Visual Studio 2005, check it out over <a href="http://tinyurl.com/9luzp">here.</a> Thanks to Jim Wilson for pointing this out in his blog. 8)

[KTamas]

Yeah, well it's a good thing that the compilers are free, too bad that the IDE is still hundreds of $.

Also, while MS says ".NET is the future", it is not gonna be the future until it gets some major speedup.

(disclaimer: I'm talking about .NET CF from now on, not the desktop version; the desktop version of the framework is slightly better, but still,, bad, in case of speed)

Right now, managed code is freaking slow, I can't even compare it's speed with native code. I'm not saying to make it as fast as native (It is nearly impossible), but at least, make it faster. MUCH faster.

[jacklf]

Yeah, well it's a good thing that the compilers are free, too bad that the IDE is still hundreds of $.

There's almost always been an hobbyist-approachable version of VC++ in the $99 or less range.. Now there's even a free version: Visual Studio Express (http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/default.aspx). (until Nov 2006 at least.. when it will, in theory, start selling for $50).

[Kris Kumar]

There's almost always been an hobbyist-approachable version of VC++ in the $99 or less range.. Now there's even a free version: Visual Studio Express (http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/default.aspx). (until Nov 2006 at least.. when it will, in theory, start selling for $50).

The Express edition does not support Windows Mobile development. You will need Standard or Professional edition to build Windows Mobile stuff, or will have to use the build technique described in the above posted link.

[jacklf]

ah -- that's disappointing to hear, but glad to see there's a way around it now then.

[John Cody]

Just a FYI: My original mod that allows hobbyist programmers to use the FREE eVB tool to develop Smartphone apps:

http://www.omnisoft.com/articles/spevb/default.asp

Was just updated to allow it to create apps for the new WM5 Smartphones too:

http://www.omnisoft.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=543&amp;PN=1