The Moth

Thank you all that attended my webcast.

For those that missed it, you can replay it here: .NET Compact Framework for Desktop developers. You get the same experience except slide animations seem to have been taken out and of course you can't interact and ask questions.

Speaking of questions, looks like my content was so clear that I didn’t have to clarify anything :-p. Instead, here are some of the questions that I received.

Q1) I see from one of the last slides that you won't be covering SQL CE/SQL Mobile/SQL Everywhere. Please consider doing so in a future webcast.
A1) Thank you for the suggestion. In the mean time you can find info on SQL Everywhere here and here. Ask questions on this topic here.

Q2) Does Groove offer support for mobile devices yet?
A2) I have absolutely no idea. I would think not and indeed searching seems to bring back no relevant results so I'll stick with "no it is not supported at the moment" guess. If anyone has info to the contrary please enlighten me and I'll update this. Groove home page.

Q3) Are there any particularly cool open source projects for Windows Mobile?
A3) Yes, SDF from OpenNETCF. Source for v1.x is free and for v2.x available at a small fee. Binaries are free regardless of version.

Q4) What's your initial opinion of the new Mobile Client Software Factory? Is it useful for beginners or should novices focus on more meat and potatoes issues?
A4) I think it is a great effort. As everything else, only you know if it is of value for your particular scenario but definitely do check it out.

Q5) Windows Mobile or Tablet PCs?
A5) Mobility development is a wide field from laptops to tabletpcs to UMPCs to PocketPCs to Smartphones to watches! Depending on the job requirements one or more of the previous platforms can be chosen for any particular project. There is no universal answer.
Expect to read more on this blog soon regarding the Vista mobility story

Q6) Mapping for devices?
A6) See this and this. I would expect this to fully support mobile browsers or someone will be missing a trick.

Q7) In some Windows Mobile devices the .Net Compact Framework is in the system ROM in others it has to be downloaded and installed, what is the performance and other impacts of the built in framework vs a downloaded version?
A7) If you are building against a NETCF version that you expect to be in ROM on all your target devices, then there is no issue. If you don't, then you need to deploy the NETCF runtime with your app. In that case, NETCF is installed in RAM and hence using some of it (much like installing any application on your device). The other difference between the NETCF being in RAM or ROM is a tiny perf advantage in the ROM case. This is not something you should be worried about as it will definitely not be your perf bottleneck if you have one.