Developing For .NET

In 2005 and 2006 I did a significant amount of Compact Framework development for my company.  I wrote a very large, intensely data-driven application for field workers to confirm and collect real estate assessment data.  We used SqlServerCE on the device (and later tried SqlLite), and ultimately the data had to sync back to an existing database on the AS/400.  This was a real mother of a project and ate up almost a year of development time, largely because there was very little real help available.

I just got done perusing Edmund Tan’s book .NET Compact Framework 3.5 Data-driven Applications and let me say I *really* could have used this book back then!  This is an extremely thorough coverage of the current Compact Framework for Windows Mobile 6.0.  The book walks the reader through developing a series of real world applications, which seems to be PACKT’s preferred style.  Unlike many books about Microsoft technologies, this one is not limited to Sql Server: the author gives Oracle Lite equal coverage throughout.

As the title suggests, this title is very data centric.  Data topics include building the data tier, parameterized queries, full-text searching, data synchronization, and more.  I would have killed for the guidance provided in the Performance and Packaging & Deployment chapters.  There are several other topics, like SMS and Security that are just icing on the cake.  As I said before, I would have loved this book 5 years ago.

It’s obvious Mr. Tan knows his topic well, the material is very accessible and well written.  If you have any Windows Mobile 6.0 or Compact Framework projects then I’m pretty confident there is something here for you.  The publisher has made the chapter on “Building Integrated Services” available for free, so you can download it and check it out for yourself.