First Post

My name is Russ Keldorph.  I'm a member of the Windows CE team at Microsoft, and my primary responsibility is ownership of the native command-line development tools like the C/C++ compilers and the assemblers.  I also work with the debugger and kernel from time to time, since these are in some ways closely tied to the compilers (debug info, calling convention, etc).  I started this blog so I would have a place to write about issues that I or others encounter from time to time, and so any readers out there would have a more specialized place to ask questions about the tools than Usenet, though that is still an excellent medium.

Windows CE 5.0, the latest version as of this post, has been ported to 4 distinct computer architectures: ARM, MIPS, SH-4, and x86.  In addition to these primary architectures, the tools support some effectively distinct sub-architectures such as Thumb, a 16-bit instruction word alternate instruction set for ARM processors, and MIPS32, MIPS64, and MIPS-16 variants on the MIPS architecture.  One of the goals of the tools for Windows CE is to provide as similar a development experience to the desktop as possible while taking into account the specific needs of Windows CE developers.  As such, the compilers for Windows CE share a great deal of source code with the compilers for the Windows desktop OS.  In fact, the x86 toolchain is identical, though it is sometimes a version or two behind the latest and greatest from Visual Studio.  Keeping the compilers close to those in Visual Studio allows easier porting of application code written for the desktop, though there are still big differences in areas like C++/CLI and library/API support due mostly to the size restaints of the embedded systems Windows CE is intended to target.

Anyway, I hope I've properly introduced myself and my group.  Feel free to let me know about topics you'd like covered, and I'll answer as much as I can along with occasional rants on subjects that I hope you'll find interesting!