How Devices Fit Into .NET
Devices are alive and well in the new programming world of .NET.
by Ken Rabold
Slowly but surely, Visual Studio .NET, C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, and the .NET Framework are leaving vaporworld. As indicated by the availability of these tools as Release Candidates and the launch of Windows XP, Microsoft is starting to deliver on its .NET vision. This is also true for devices, which are alive and well and are positioned strongly in the new programming world of .NET. In fact, devices are now becoming first-rate players in total solutions that involve Web access, wireless connectivity, mobility, and access to server and Internet information through Web Services. Read on, or jump to the individual tools that interest you:
.NET Compact Framework
The .NET Compact Framework (CF) is by far the single most important announcement for developers focusing on devices. The .NET CF brings to device developers the ability to program with C# and VB.NET using the same toolset (Visual Studio .NET) as their desktop counterparts and establishes managed code as an important and viable device platform.
.NET CF is key in delivering on the promise of providing information at any time, at any place, on any device. The .NET CF follows the same tradition of Window CE by supporting only a subset of the .NET Framework functionality. Portions of the .NET Framework that make no sense on devices or were too resource-intensive are absent from the compact version of the .NET Framework, while at the same time new classes exclusive to devices are introduced. The .NET CF is positioned as a hardware-independent program execution environment for devices such as PDAs, set-top boxes, Web pads, and other embedded devices.
Some of the key elements of the .NET CF are:
- The full architecture of the .NET Framework of the Common Language Runtime and managed code execution
- Support for a variety of network protocols and XML Web Services
- Runs a single managed code binary on any hardware, regardless of CPU type
- Profiles for different device classes such as a Pocket PC or a mobile phone
Some of the items missing from the .NET CF are:
- Framework classes specific to the desktop or servers such as ASP.NET
- Remoting and serialization
- COM interoperability
- XPath and XSLT in the System.Xml
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