Brighthand via Erik:
There has been some concern expressed in the Pocket PC community that, by making Visual Studio .NET 2003 the only option for creating .NET Compact Framework applications, it is squeezing out small developers. The new version of Visual Studio .NET is expected to cost more than $1,000, out of the price range of most hobbyists.
I understand that Microsoft has to make money. They can’t just give away their tools. However, the J2ME community is buzzing with apps because there are several SDKs and toolchains that are available ABSOLUTELY FREE.
As a developer of anything that interests me, and mobile development currently interests me, I’d love to be developing for the .NET Compact Framework. I just simply can’t afford it.
It was really cool that MS released eMbedded Visual Tools for free. I miss that now for developing for the .NET CF.
Any chance of a stripped down eMbedded Visual Tools for .NET or Web Matrix-style app? Or will someone step in with an app similar to SharpDevelop? It would be great, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
You could probably convince me to buy a $99 .Net Compact Framework SDK, much like purchasing Visual Basic .NET or C# .NET ala carte. I just think that $1000 as an entry level to develop for .NET Compact Framework is silly. There are going to be fewer good apps for the platform because of it.
I’m not an MS hata. Really, I’m not. I may be an open source junkie, and sometimes that conflicts with the MS way, but I try to be objective as possible. Some of the stuff that MS does makes complete sense from both a design and business sense. This ain’t one of them though.
Needless to say, I’ve been experimenting with J2ME recently in addition to the WAP stuff, Python stuff, C# stuff, Java stuff, and all the other stuff that I play with in my copious free time. I would so love to add .NET Compact Framework to this list.