pocket PC programming using home edition visual studio.net 2003

[Neil Wallace]

Guys,

I am hopping mad.

I am just a hobby programmer making little .net applications for pretty much
no-one else but me to use.
One application I have written would, to my mind, work best on a handheld
PC.

Fortunately I have a Pocket PC - an HP jornada bought 4 years ago. Doing my
research (cover to cover reading of "O'reilly pocket guide" I realised that
I couldn't use .net framework applications on it, so I got santa to bring me
an acer 2003 version.

(you work out how much has already gone from my pocket to microsoft)

Tonight I decided to start my first project.

Of course, despite having downloaded all the relevant SDE and SDKs etc....
"Smart device application" wouldn't show up anywhere.

Having trawled the archives of this excellent group, I now realise why this
is the case. I need to upgrade to Professional edition. there is very scant
mention of the fact that the home edition can't do this.

Well, I ain't gonna spend £400 doing this.

Way I see it the money would be better spent on a palm OS device instead.

no wonder there is NO decent software out for Pocket PC.
Bill Gates - windows CE deserves to die.

rant over.

Neil (v.disappointed.)

 

[Brian Henry]

you don't need VS.NET at all to write apps for a pocket device, you just
need to know how the SDK works and the .NET compilers... the VS.NET though
standard edition is missing templates for the PDA's thats why you don't see
it. It can still make apps for it though, you just have to know how to do
it. But if you learn the framework compilers you don't need to spend a cent
on a new VS.NET app... so your no edcent software out for a pocket pc
argument is irrelevant because you can do it for FREE... eC++ and eVB for
PocketPC are free along with .NET for pocket pc.. it's just a matter of
knowing how to use them... and there is tons of software out for pocket pc
that is good.

 

[Neil Wallace]

you don't need VS.NET at all to write apps for a pocket device, you
just need to know how the SDK works and the .NET compilers... the
VS.NET though standard edition is missing templates for the PDA's
thats why you don't see it. It can still make apps for it though, you
just have to know how to do it.

Thankyou Brian,
I would REALLY appreciate any information on how to do this.

I am sick of the treadmill of upgrades that have lead me to this point (new
XP computer to run VS.net... new pocket PC etc. etc.) not to mention £100 on
microsoft press books, none of which mentioned that VS.net home edition is a
lemon when it comes to mobile devices.
Enough is enough. I simply can't justify £400 to write a couple of tiny
applications.

 

[Brian Henry]

you don't need to ever buy a thing to do .net programming like I said
before. Someone here that has more time will be able to explain it better.
All you need is the free framework which has the compilers to do it for you
(absoutly free) the cost of VS.NET is just the cost of a frontend that
simpilfies what you get for free. If you can teach yourself how to use the
framework without VS.NET in end you will know a lot more then a good amount
of .NET developers that can't work without the IDE. There is a newsgroup for
the compact framework also that could really help you out doing it without
buying the professional version.

 

[Neil Wallace]

Thanks Brian,

much appreciated... though this sounds like quite a challenge!

I still feel cheated by the visual studio documentation though... it really
doesn't make it clear that home edition can't do "smart device apps".

Cheers
Neil

 

[Neil Wallace]

Neil Wallace wrote:


(replying to my own post...)

it appears from the SDK read me that the work around is to use eMbedded C++
v 4.0. This is AFAICS a free download from MSDN albeit approx 122MB.

So I'm off to try and figure out C++. I expect further frustrations along
the way, and suspect that big bad MS will soon make a costly development
suite necessary for developing on any of their platforms. Even if you just
want to write a "hello world" to prove to the kids that you can "talk to the
machines"!

Incidentally - I feel that microsoft documentation is the bad guy here. I
don't think I am the first, nor will I be the last to misunderstand that
although installing and using VB.Net 2003 (which is part of Visual
Studio.net 2003... and appears as such in startmenus etc....) is a world
apart from being a bona-fide user of visual studio.net 2003.

Confused, disatisfied and out of pocket....... but UNDEFEATED (for now!)

Neil