Customer Reviews

Pocket PC (Application Development)

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

 

 

I bought this book last July, because it was one of the only books that billed itself as a "Pocket PC" specific development guide, and not just Windows CE. It even had "PocketPC 2002" on the cover, so I figured it MUST be current. Plus, at the time, the reviews here were overwhelmingly positive (a mystery to me now).

What I found inside turned out to be a pretty dangerous book, to someone like myself who had no previous Win32 API experience. Every single API function and programming practice is as old as the first version of WinCE. Specific (and crucial) PocketPC functionality such as the SIP, new human interface guidelines, hardware buttons, you name it - it's just not there. The screenshots of his example programs look like old WinCE programs resized to fit the PocketPC screen - and they still have the Windows95 3D effects and menubar at the top. It's embarassing.

This is clearly a repackaged and outdated book hiding in a new cover.

I am a professional software engineer who was looking for specifics on CE development. In the course of my career I have read Stroustrup, Design Patterns, Algorithm books, you name it. I have never, ever, seen a book this awful. Dr. (!) Krell preaches about the "subtleties" of pocket pc interface design. Patronizes about the importance of being a user in order to understand UI's. He constantly refers back to his little, custom developed GUI framework whenever he discusses building UI's for CE, but doesn't make it clear when the function is in the Windows API or his little framework. He generalizes in a chapter about just what good software architecture means. His steps are laborious and often humourous ("Step 1. Launch embedded Visual C++").

If you wish to waste money buy this book. I would give it a 0, but that's sadly not an option.

Wanting to enter the world of Pocket PC development, I have been searching for books on the topic. I am already an accomplished programmer and was simply looking for specifics on the topic. With a title like Pocket PC Developer's Guide, I thought I had found that resource. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed.

The book deals mainly with Windows CE programming in general and very little with Pocket PC specifically. When it does approach the topic, it still skips over many of the required and/or recommded practices for this platform. For example, nowhere in the book is there mention of handling of the SIP or other Pocket PC-specific details. Nowhere is there any mention of Pocket PC-specific messages in the WndProc. How is one supposed to learn anything about Pocket PC programming from this book when the author clearly doesn't discuss the bulk of what makes the platform unique.

What the author does do, however, and in excess, is preach. He goes on and on about his programming techniques and, in fact, spends chapters on the topic of his styles. Again, this is supposed to be a book on PocketPC development, not a general programming book.

I ended up getting the Windows CE book from Microsoft by Boling. True, it deals mainly with Windows CE in general, but it has two large chapters on Pocket PC which provide more information on the specifics that in all of Krell's book!

Stay away from this book if you're looking to develop on the Pocket PC. You're not going to learn much here.

I have only read half of Chapter 1 and all of the thread synchronization and COM chapters, but that's already more time than I should have invested in this book. I have to say that I've never read a computer book that was so poorly written. It's just plain sloppy - like a rough draft or something.
I could tell from its description that it was a book for beginners, but I bought it anyways because the table of contents seemed to cover what I'm interested in and because I thought a beginner's book would be a smooth read. I've already discounted the "smooth read" prediction. I can also say that the coverage thus far has been too superficial to help me do anything significantly beyond the examples in the book.
My advice: stick with Boling's book on CE programming.

Bought this book over a year ago and found it totally useless. The author presents some sort of framework on programming style, but doesn't say much about how to actually do programming tasks for the Pocket PC. This is one of the worst books I've bought.

This book is suitable for anyone with a little C++
programming experience who wants to create software
for the WindowsCE platform, Pocket PC Developer's
guide provides a slickly packaged and approachable
tutorial that will get you started creating
state-of-the-art WindowsCE programs.

The smart presentation style and easy-to-understood
code examples help make this text an excellent
resource. Beginning with short examples illustrating
the actual Visual C++ tools in action, the author

gets you started with simple minimal GUI programs and
other comprehensible examples. Rather than just
listing APIs and classes, the emphasis is on hands-on
WindowsCE development.

This book covers the basic graphic system built-in
WindowsCE. Subsequent sections look at user interface
design, writing user friendly applications . Along the
way, the author emphasizes several programming
methodology which is helpful for not only WindowsCE
programmers . Later chapters look at advanced

multithreading and synchronization, utilizing COM
components which is absolutely crucial for developing
successful commercial products.

While there are comparably fewer books on PocketPC
compared to the Windows platform, readers are lucky to
have this one available. Anyone who wants to learn
WindowsCE programming will be well served by this
book. It's a fine tutorial that earns high marks for
its approachable, clear examples and an excellent
presentation by an author who knows his stuff and,
better yet, knows how to teach it to others.

The technical information described in this book goes into many details that Visual Studio protects the programmer from dealing with for the most part. while that knowledge might be beneficial for some it certainely does take away the space that could have been used to focus more on more important topics. I was hoping to get some useful information and examples on database software for the Pocket PC but didn't find more than I already knew. I personally think that this topic is quite important, and failing to give it enough attention is a major drawback to a book like this. Knowing what I know now I wouldn't buy this book. I found the Pocket PC SDK that comes with the embedded visual tools to be more informative.

You should be aware that, in general, this book is NOT a very good book (it puts too much emphasis on the use of the author's individual programming quirks and applications). However, the sections on setting up a program so that you can build it for both the Desktop and the PockectPC environments have merit. But, as I recall, the implementation makes use of some kind of libraries found on the CD that comes with the book. Also, the implementation is for a C++ based programming environment, not a C#/CompactFramework environment - but the general approach should be the same. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Compact_Framework/

I purchased Programming Microsoft Windows CE, and was blown away. I could not follow the examples, and did not know what was going on. Pocket PC Developer's Guide on the other hand is perfect for someone just starting like me. I have not programmed in the Windows environment, and this book was just what i needed to understand how to do so. I am VERY happy with this book. If you want to learn to program your pocket pc, this book is the perfect place to start.

Dr. Krell's great insight in the Pocket PC world and his ability to bring this knowledge to us developers in a clear, easy to understand, yet powerful way, makes this book a 'must have' for any serious Pocket PC developer.
Dr. Krell leads us from simple to complex examples in a logical way that allows us to understand and adapt them to our own development requirements.