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Microsoft Should Tout the Compact Framework
by Dan Fergus

August 2003 Issue

Dan Fergus
Agree? Disagree? Let us know by e-mailing us at vsmedit@fawcette.com.    The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the opinions of VSM.

The .NET Compact Framework is the best thing to happen to mobile devices on a Microsoft platform since, well, ever. But at the very moment Microsoft has delivered a tool that is leaps and bounds better than anything it has delivered previously, it seems in danger of taking its own success for granted. For example, this year's Tech•Ed, one of Microsoft's two shows of shows for developers, scarcely featured any Compact Framework sessions at all—a huge oversight and missed opportunity for promoting this fledgling platform.

First, the background: There's been a tremendous gap between the tools for your regular, everyday Joe programmer, and for those of us who have been working on developing applications for handheld devices during the last few years. Handheld developers simply lacked the quality tools that everyone else used. Initially, an add-on for Visual Basic 6 let you write code targeted for mobile devices. Then Microsoft gave us eMbedded Visual Tools with a standalone IDE that didn't require you to share the VB6 one. This had problems too. When you used the IDE to write an application in VB, you were actually writing with a scripting language in which everything was a Variant. (Thank goodness this problem didn't exist with eMbedded Visual C++.) Once an application was in progress, the IDE was so buggy that debugging the app was more than painful and extremely tedious.

On the hardware side, a dizzying array of devices made it hard to decide which was the best for you and even to know which ones your customer might have on site. Even when you did know, it was hard to target a device with the correct version of the software. Between the programming challenges and the confusing profusion of devices, getting an organization up to speed to develop and distribute a mobile application was too much work.

If a vendor wants to grow a market, it must make that market easier to enter. Microsoft has done this with the Compact Framework. Now anyone who uses Visual Studio .NET 2003 has the tools to develop applications for Windows CE devices, especially Pocket PC applications. You simply select the "Smart Device Extension" item from the New Project Templates listing to create a new application for the Pocket PC. You can use the full power of VB.NET and C# to write mobile applications. Developing apps for handheld devices has become a much more enjoyable task than in years past.

Microsoft had to cut back somewhat to get the .NET Framework's 30 MB runtime down to 1.3 MB on the device, thereby reducing some of the framework's scope. Microsoft removed any redundancy that might have existed in overloaded methods in order to reduce the runtime's size. You can usually recover any functionality that was removed by doing a P/Invoke call into the underlying Windows API. However, Microsoft did an excellent job of retaining functionality, and the differences between the desktop framework and the CF are almost invisible.

Any developer can use the CF included in the shipping version of VS.NET 2003 to create mobile applications with ease. You'd think I'd be happy. I should be. But I think Microsoft is in danger of giving away many of the advantages it's worked so hard to achieve in mobile platforms. The problem: Microsoft is doing a poor job of publicizing and marketing the newfound power of this platform. The company offers the Mobile2Market program and the Mobile Solutions Partner Program, but it must hit developers at the education and conference level to get them and their managers to embrace this new market space. Technical conferences seem to shun sessions on Pocket PCs and the CF. Microsoft doesn't run all the conferences around the world, but it does have some editorial input into what many include. And Microsoft does have control over Tech•Ed, but the conference included a pitifully small number of sessions about the CF. Out of more than 350 sessions, only four in the mobility track covered the CF, and only two in the data-management track covered SQL Server CE (SQL CE). Only one of the more than 30 hands-on labs was about SQL CE. This isn't enough coverage to push such a great technology to the developer base. Microsoft has given us a great tool, but it would be a grave error to assume the power of the tool alone will ensure the platform's success. Here's hoping the Professional Developers Conference later this year corrects this imbalance.

About the Author
Dan Fergus in the chief architect at Forest Software Group, developing .NET applications, including Pocket PC applications for sports teams. He is a frequent speaker at major technical conferences and works as a consultant and trainer, teaching the Compact Framework along with Visual Basic .NET and ASP.NET courses. Dan has been working with .NET and the CF since the beginning. He is the coauthor of The Definitive Guide to the .NET Compact Framework (Apress).