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Welcome
to the first installment of "The Pocket Commando". I appreciate the
opportunity deVBuzz is giving me to discuss my opinions and ideas on various topics
within the realm of PocketPC development. Since this is deVBuzz, the obvious goal
is maximizing your productivity and knowledge using eVB. I want to keep this forum
flexible and include everything from development tips or best practices to some
interesting user interface widgets you might be able to take immediate advantage
of. Of course, your ideas and suggestions are always welcome and encouraged since
they will help me tailor where I go over time. So, I'm looking forward sharing
some of my experiences and software nuggets with fellow eVB developers…
…but
not this time….
With this first column, I'd like
to share why I'm excited about developing applications on the PocketPC platform.
For me, it's another golden age in software development. I get a chance to develop
full, robust, and interesting applications all by myself.
I
started developing software when I was a pup on Commodore's Vic-20. For those
who remember, it was a dream come true. The Vic-20 was a sub $300 machine with
a built in BASIC dialect, sound, and color graphics. A great application platform,
but with limited memory. One of the most exciting things about it was how new
the development community was and how immature early software was. I couldn't
wait each month to see what programs Compute magazine would publish by developers
just like me. As a single developer I was able to create applications that were
on par, if not better, than most of the early commercial applications that were
available. Sure, you had to use the "wopping" 512 bytes in the cassette
buffer for some machine language routines and store your graphics as DATA statements,
but the results were stunning. It really was a time when I felt very much a part
of the machine and could make an incredible piece of software…
..but
I wax nostalgic…
As computers grew in memory and
sophistication, this simple joy passed on. Most of the projects I've worked on
in the last few years have had numerous developers involved. In my field of enterprise
web-enabled software, solutions require architects, designers, developers, user
interface design experts, database managers, complex application servers, and
100,000's to millions of lines of code. Sure there's small applications, tools,
and the occasional surprise, but for me most times I'm a cog in the machine. I'm
either managing a large team of developers or one member (architect) of a team.
Now don't get me wrong, it's not as bad as it might seem and I enjoy working on
cutting edge enterprise technology.
However, to borrow
a line from "The Hunt for Red October": "I miss the simple pleasure
of fishing with my Grandfather". Here the commander of the Russian submarine
laments over a simple pleasure he enjoyed during his youth. I miss the simple
pleasure of being able to build an interesting application that others would also
see as useful and interesting!
So along comes Microsoft's
PocketPC. A small, but powerful device, designed to make an individual's life
easier to manage. A great application platform that is limited in memory and thus
the size and complexity an application can achieve. Sounds like a return to the
days of the original home computers. The PocketPC has rekindled my excitement
in developing small, targeted applications. Small device computing has me, once
again, thinking of the possibilities of this platform and the interesting applications
I can create with my own two hands. It really is nearly a new frontier with whole
new categories of software and techniques that need to be discovered and refined.
I
look forward to the next installment, and promise there will be some knowledge
and code you can actually use!