Development Choice .NET CF 2.0 Vs .NET CF 3.5

[Jim]

Hi All,

Currently I have a mobile application with the following environment
Development Platform: VS 2005
..NET CF: 1.0 SP3
Database: SQL CE 2.0

Now I am planning to migrate to a newer version of .NET and my choices are
VS2005, CF 2.0 SP2, SQL Mobile 3.1 or VS2008, CF 3.5, SQL Compact Edition
3.5

While I know the later is the "latest", I would like to hear some thoughts
from experts on the better choice, in terms of performance and stability.

Regards,
Jim

 

[Simon Hart [MVP]]

You will see *great* improvements going forward from CF 1.0 even if you only
move to CF 2.0. You'll find CF 2.0 and later give great performance -
performance was on one the top priorities for the .NET CF product team. There
any many articles out there which document the differences.

I've written a blog on the new features of CF 3.5 many new classes,
operations are added to this release, you'll need to look at it to see if any
are benefit. Some features of .NET 3.0 such as WCF are included (subset) see
here: http://simonrhart.blogspot.com/2007/12/wcf-subset-supported-by-cf.html
If you move to VS 2008 you can target CF 2.0 (but not CF 1.0). Some other
benefits of CF 3.5 is C#3.0 or VB 9.0 - many great new features listed here:
http://simonrhart.blogspot.com/search/label/C# 3.0

For new features in CF 3.5 and VS 2008 see here:
http://simonrhart.blogspot.com/2007/12/whats-new-for-device-developers-in.html

RE: SQL Server Compact 3.5 contains some new feature such as
IDENTITY_INSERT, nested querys, rowversion datatype etc, see here:
http://simonrhart.blogspot.com/2007/12/microsoft-sql-server-compact-35.html

In terms of stability the CF 3.5 has never been more stable- although its
early days we are happy with it.

 

[dbgrick]

CF 3.5 with also includes a nice performance monitor. I also like the
ability to use SQL Server 2998 with Track changes and then write my own
Replication service.

Regards,
Rick D.

 

[Bryan]

I'm sure he meant to say SQL Server 2008, unless he is from the future and
has seen SQL Server 2998