Customer Reviews

.NET Compact Framework Pocket Guide

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This A6/B6-sized book with only 100 pages certainly justifies the "Pocket Guide" in its title. One could write a whole book on what is missing from it in terms of covering the .NET CF, but that would be unfair, as the purpose of the book is just to get you up and running with programming against the CF. It would also be unfair for this review to be longer than the book, so I'll try and keep it short.

It starts with a quick intro to the CLR, devices and Visual Studio. At the end of these small 30 pages the reader has written the typical "Hello World" app and has had all the terminology put in context; impressively straightforward writing style and explanations. The second part of the book consists of 10 pages describing every single control (with a sentence or two) and includes a very good section on SmartPhone differences and considerations. The fourth part is the same size and discusses deployment hitting all the right points.

The third part is the largest and contains 3 end-to-end projects: Currency Converter, Book Ordering System and Bluetooth Chat. It is a good selection of sample code as it covers data, communications and web services amongst other things. If you are a complete novice these sample projects should prove valuable in getting you started. Note however that all the code is in VB.NET (whether you'll be glad or sad with that depends entirely on your upbringing).

This book was a fraud. It wasn't advertised as a VB.NET only book. There is no C# code in here at all. This one went right in the garbage. The information in their was not very useful. I'd recommend buying any other book on the Compact Framework than this one. If you're looking for something that tells you what classes you can and can't use, common workarounds, etc. - look somewhere else.

Ok what can I say? This book was recommended to me by a friend. It looked like the book was going to take me step by step creating a couple project, But........

The very first project was missing the appropriate code and instructions to properly place some of the commands. With no explanation on the namespace system I was at a loss. However with a little research and a couple other books I figured it out and got past the errors. However after hours of coding in the examples I kept running into other typos and inconsistencies. There was not source code available from the web so I just gave up and returned the book.

this book is small--truly pocket-sized and also cheap.
for its size and cost, it is truly a great starter for anyone just starting out with mobile development.