Virtual PocketPC to appear in Visual Studio.Net 2003

 

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Posted on 5 Mar 2003 at 16:12

It was only last month that Microsoft acquired Connectix technology - Microsoft buys Virtual PC - and already it has been put to use in Visual Studio.Net 2003. Currently out in beta, the latest release of Microsoft's venerable programming sytem is due to launch 24 April.

Ivo Salmre, Microsoft Product Manager, .Net Developers and Tools, was previewing the Visual Studio system for journalists at a briefing in London. And where Pocket PC 2002 leads, a Smartphone emulation will follow, said Salmre.

A version of Virtual PC presents an implementation of Pocket PC running as an isolated process. 'It's a full x86 version of the PocketPC environment,' said Salmre, emphasising its help for developing applications for such devices. The code-deploy-test loop is much shorter - speeding development times - when an emulation of the target environment runs on the same PC as the programming system.

The emulation is fully integrated into Visual Studio in that newly compiled applications are inserted into the (virtual) compressed framework.

Salmre demonstrated the quick, drag-and drop-based development for a device application. 'A high quality emulator is what people have been asking Microsoft about for long time,' he said. 'Emulation technology, from a developer's perspective, is vey exciting.'

The device footprint of the .Net Compact Framework (which is the .Net framework for devices) is 1.6Mb, as a compressed file system.

Mobile device support is a big feature of Visual Studio.Net 2003, which is described by Microsoft as a more 'mature' version of its .Net development suite. The major overhaul of its venerable programming system occurred with Visual Studio.Net. As well as PocketPC 2002 emulation, there will also be some emulation support for Windows CE.Net, with Microsoft Smartphone support being added 'in the not too distant future', according to Salmre.

Other device-programming support includes SQL-CE (via ADO.Net), which means SQL-based database functionality can be running on a device. There is also integration with Microsoft's handling of Web Services - its model for Web Services clients applies to devices as to desktop applications. A 'Smart Device Application' is a new project template option, supported for VB.Net and C# development.

The way it works is that the compiler delivers IL (intermediate language) code for the .Net Compact Framework just as it does for desktop development. The JIT (just in time) compiler in the Compact Framework manages the implementation and execution of the code natively. Note that you can compile to the Compact Framework and then still run on Win32 platforms. The desktop is treated as a superset of this functionality and will run the code.

The developer suite Visual Studio.Net will be launched - alongside Windows Server 2003 and a 64-bit version of SQL Server 2000 - on 24 April.

Author: Alun Williams