Smartphone Thoughts: Mobile and Embedded Developer Conference 2005

Day Three
The third day, for me personally at least, was very much about in-depth technical sessions, so there weren't any notable announcements but plenty of detailed content.

ASP.NET Mobile
The first session I attended described ASP.NET Mobile controls allowing you to create web applications which display well across a variety of mobile devices, not just Windows Mobile but from the simplest WAP browsers upwards. This is a great technology which takes some of the work away from the developer of redesigning content for different types of device. You can find out all about supported features at www.asp.net/mobile.

.NETCF v2.0 COM Interop
The second session was a deep dive into COM Interop in the .NET Compact Framework v2.0 by fellow MVP Alex Feinman. The end result of this session was to demonstrate that it is possible to host ActiveX controls (such as the Flash player or Media Player control) from within .NETCF v2.0 code although not supported directly "in the box". This was really incredible to see and shows just how far interoperability has improved in .NETCF v2.0.

OpenNETCF.org
Next up we had an introduction to OpenNETCF.org and it�s resources for .NETCF developers, along with suggestions for developers who are interested in creating their own community projects. The much anticipated SDF v1.3 was released along with the Application Blocks � Compact Framework versions of the Microsoft Patterns & Practises blocks.

Bluetooth Source
Microsoft have recognised that developing with Bluetooth is currently difficult, so have released a shared source .NETCF wrapper around the low-level Bluetooth APIs. This only provides the very basics of Bluetooth programming but it is a starting point at least, it unfortunately lacks a number of key features such as device discovery which are already available in other free libraries. It�s success will also depend on how many device manufacturers Microsoft can woo over to using their own Bluetooth stack as currently devices are split between Microsoft�s and Broadcom�s stacks which offer very different programming models (and only Microsoft�s SDK is free).

Performance
In the afternoon we heard two very detailed sessions on both Performance and Debugging with .NET Compact Framework from members of the product team. Performance was covered by Roman Batoukov. The first step with performance is to look at how to measure the performance of your application, in .NETCF 2.0 you can now generate statistic files for individual applications measuring objects and memory allocated and interop calls. The session highlighted the new Generics support in v2.0 and their effect on performance in collections by avoiding boxing and type casting. Performance hints were given across the board for .NETCF developers from Exception handling to Windows Forms. You might like to also check out the Performance and Working Set FAQ produced by Roman.

Debugging
The debugging session given by David Kline and Mark Ihimoyan described new logs available to developers including assembly loading, interop calls and network traffic. A demo was given showing just-in-time debugging, finally tips to avoid deadlocks and memory leaks were given. A new free tool �TuneIn�, which will be available soon, was described which provides live running statistics, this will definitely be a tool to watch out for. This shows that Microsoft is committed to improving the tools and developer experience for the .NET Compact Framework v2.0.

SumoBot Competition
The conference ended with the finals of the SumoBot competition. Attendees could compete in a series of rounds to force their opponent out of the ring. An interesting spectator experience and the lighter side of embedded development. Unfortunately I missed most of this, but got to watch some bots seemingly dancing with each other.

Closing Thoughts
This year�s conference was on a much larger scale than last year�s events and combined the two previously separate Embedded and Mobility developer conferences. There were approximately 2000 attendees registered for the event, so it was a rather less intimate affair than last year. By merging the two conferences it had to meet the expectations of two very different sets of attendees although there are some large overlaps. The highlight for mobility developers was of course Windows Mobile 5.0 and a large number of sessions were focussed on this. The sessions covering application development generally covered managed code (.NETCF) more than traditional native code development. I think the attendees appreciated this and it shows a shift in approach to developing applications. A key message of .NETCF v2.0 is improved performance and interoperability, both of which help to make managed code a viable option in a greater range of scenarios. Our introduction to Windows Mobile 5.0 and new functionality for developers was very useful, and I look forward to seeing cool new devices to take advantage of these features over the coming year.

Peter is a .NET Compact Framework MVP and owns a small development company in the UK providing a mixture of consulting and off the shelf developer packages (www.inthehand.com). He is also one of the driving forces behind OpenNETCF.org, which just goes to confirm that he has an unhealthy interest in .NETCF.