j#

[John Roberts]

Hi,

I have read that j# is not supported as a language for the compact
framework. However, is this absolutely true or is it more a case that Visual
Studio does not have the wizard and debug support for j#/compact framework
projects?

TIA,
- John

 

[Chris Tacke, eMVP]

The J# compiler has no CF support, so what it means is that, like with
managed C++, you might be able to get it to build compatible IL, but
there's no way to tell it to not use certain opcodes and there's no way to
know when it does. Search the archives for managed C++ and you'll get
decent info. The short of it is that getting it to work would probably take
more time than just writing it in C#.

--
Chris Tacke
Co-founder
OpenNETCF.org
Has OpenNETCF helped you? Consider donating to support us!
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[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

Well, you might be able to make it work, but it's unsupported. Some people
have been able, for a very specific case, to get Managed C++ to work, too,
but that might break at any moment, either as a result of a change from MS
or as a result of adding some otherwise innocuous code to the program. Why
not just use the supported tools?

Paul T.

 

[John Roberts]

Thanks Paul and Chris,

All our framework code and our own apps are written in C#. However, a
customer has asked us if they are able to author in Java. I had convinced
them they could choose J# (for language support only, not the JDK) although
they should seriously consider using C#.

I have just managed to get a J# application running on the platform fine.
However, I take your point that the J# compiler may emit incompatible IL
opcodes at any time. This is, of course, a problem.

Does anyone know whether these incompatible IL opcodes are documented and
whether this would also affect the open source tools that now either emit or
understand IL (such as IKVM and Mono)?

TIA,
- John

 

[Daniel Moth]

The missing IL opcodes are not documented yet but apparently two of them
are:
calli (call through function pointer)
localloc (allocation on expression stack)

Like the others said already, my advice is to go for C#...

BTW, you can see some of the difficulties Delphi is having with supporting
the CF on this blog:
http://blogs.borland.com/dcc/archive/2005/03/18/3214.aspx

Cheers
Daniel