MEDC 2005: Breakout 'A platform on the move: CF 2.0 '
This turned out to be a bit disappointing because it was really quite a gentle introduction to managed development. I should have guessed from the session code!
Actually, let me just explain that because lots of people don’t understand Microsoft’s session coding system: when you see a session coded something like:
CLI207 'A platform on the move: CF 2.0 ',
the CLI207 actually has some useful information in it. The CLI bit is often only relevant to bigger events and identifies the track the session is taken from. The 207 has two bits of information, the 07 is just a sequential coding of the session so you can ignore it, but the 200 tells you roughly what technical level the session will be pitched. We have 5 coding’s in all:
100 - concept introduction, so really just painting a product technology direction or vision. These are quite rare and usually delivered by Product Managers.
200 - Product or feature description generally without code. These tend to be located at the beginning of an event and are often delivered by the Program Manager or developer evangelist who owns the feature set.
300 - Product or feature description generally with code, or with a detailed explanation of how things work. These sessions are usually technical enough for most of us. Usually delivered by a technical evangelist, the Program manager or sometimes the developer.
400 - Specific feature (rarely a product) description with in-depth code examples and detailed explanation. If you’ve got the basics and just want to know the detailed grunge then this is the session for you. Often delivered by a specialist evangelist or the feature developer.
500 - These sessions are quite rare and generally only seen in subjects like wire protocol descriptions, or detailed device drive development, or complex OS features.
So being a 200 level session I shouldn’t have expected much from the session. The presenter was dynamic and interesting its just I had heard it all too many times before. Anyway, this is what I got:
There are now 100k developers targeting Windows Mobile, with around 10million devices out there.
The CF service packs have been downloadd over 600k times!
The CF newsgroup is 2nd busiest behind ASP.NET.
OpenNetCF has seen over 150k downloads.
CF hits about 28% of the API ‘surface area’ but implements that in 8% of the size of the desktop framework. Just goes to show how expensive some of the desktop features really were!
Sorry it’s so short, but I got bored and went for a well deserved coffee J
Marcus