Programming for Windows Mobile

C

cuemasterfl

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 5, 2001
Messages
4,181
I need some advice as to what programming language I should use for a project at work. Basically, we are going to use an HP Ipaq (unless there's a better suggestion), develop our own software (written by me) which will be the only app(s) used on the device. We have hardware that will be built here, which will plug into the USB of the Ipaq, and the two devices together will be responsible for reading meters and processing the data. The Ipaq we have runs the latest version of Windows Mobile. I really want to avoid C++ or C if possible. Ideally, I would prefer to use a version of VB (.net?) as I am more comfortable with that.

I've searched Google and there's so much information out there, so I wanted an opinion from a group of people I trust.

Any suggestions would be welcome. TIA!

Edit:
Oh, and a good book suggestion would be nice too. :)
 
Yes, the Compact .NET Framework is the way to go. There's a lot out there. I would suggest that you have Visual Studio 2008. VB.NET will be fine though I would suggest being open to C# as that tends to be the preferred language for .NET.
 
Unless you need it to be cross platform, doing anything on windows mobile using anything other than .NET would be insane and a waste of time and money.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I really appreciate it! I will look at c#. It's the only .net language I've never tried.
 
Compact framework is the way to go. It is a double edged sword though, it is very useful for a lot of things, but it is very lacking in a lot of other stuff (it's very difficult to make 'good looking' windows mobile apps with .NET CF) BUT for a utilitarian app like what you are describing, making it look pretty is probably not a priority at all and .NET CF would work very well. It's not the fastest thing in the world, but it is managed code so you don't need to worry about memory management/etc. Once you dive into windows mobile development it is surprising how similar windows mobile is to real windows!

Visual Studio has an emulator for phones, (vs 2008 only comes with WM 5 emulators, you need to download the SDK's AND emulator images from MS web site for 6.0, 6.1, and 6.5). You can debug live code running on the emulator or on a physical device. It's actually pretty slick really.

Hit me up with a PM or something if you run into some weird BS.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top