Recently i have been in a war of thoughts in terms of Windows Phones application development.
I have been trying to catch up with the latest developments in windows Phone development as a result of trying to minimise the cost of my small silly IT project instead of using handheld terminal, i may use the windows phone platform which can be also be used for other purposes. Another reason is that i can use the windows 7 phone emulator to test my application. I am opting to go windows phone way since i am also only conversant with C# and i am also a nerd of Microsoft and its brands like Microsoft Expression blend which I hail all the time.
In the process i have been able to learn and get more confused. Trying to access a production database from a handheld equipment can be the most trying moments of a Developer. In this post i am just trying to lay out my confusion list so that members of this blog and many other
visitors may bring their mind together in to a conclusive Scenario.
From my level of my phone windows 7 developing skills it shows that it local storage has not been able to accomodate persistent client side database although their is a format of SQL server called SLQ Compact edition 3.5 which is trying to support it as a local storage but not a persistent client side database.
I have feeling you know what i mean by persistent. “Persistent” in this context mean that if u save a query in one operation on you application, when you shutdown the app and switch it on again, u ll be able to find the saved query. Windows phone local storage doesnt work like that.
There is a Perst Database Format that is only for commercial basis of which i am not intending to use since i am just trying my application first but it possible to work with . Perst Database is usually used by Java Programmers since its all open source platform. I may be Complaining about Microsoft but they have started going open source since they have a nugget platform here you can code for Open based systems although at this moment and time I need persistent database platform to test with.
I have tried to change my SQL Server .mdf files to .sdf file supported by the SQL Compact edition using the SQLMetal tool integrated in Visual Studion 2010 Edition but still no way out.
In short advice such confused developers who are trying to make way in Phone Development. Is it time to tell Microsoft we need a persistent database platforms for windows to test our apps?…I hope some of the Microsoft MVPs are reading these.
