It has been asked whether it is a good idea to use eVB on SmartPhone 2002, now that John Cody has found a way to do so.

The main problem is the SmartPhone 2002 SDK cannot work after applying the current set of registry hacks required to make eVB IDE list SmartPhone 2002 as a valid platform to compile to.  This is simply caused by using the SmartPhone 2002 GUID and editing its information instead of generating a new one and adding it to the Platform Manger's list.  There may be more to it, but from what I saw that was the cause of this issue.

The next issue is having to install the eVB runtime files on the SmartPhone in order for a eVB application to run.  This is only marginally different that having to install the eVB runtime files on a Pocket PC 2003 device.  It is not ideal, but I think most people could deal with it if it increased developer support by even 50%.  And it has the potential to bring the hobbyist programmer to the platform.

There are bigger questions to ask.  Does eVB play nice with the SmartPhone OS?  Out of the box the SmartPhone OS only uses .1% of the CPU.  This is why the battery lasts as long as it does.  How much CPU do eVB applications use?  Are they CPU hogs, and thereby battery hogs?  I expect it'll have more to do with the applications written than with the eVB runtime.

The SmartPhone 2002 main problem is that it came to early for .NET Compact Framework, and too late for eVB.  So it only option is eVC which has an extremely limited amount of community support, especially with the SmartPhone platform specifics.

If the community takes up SmartPhone eVB applications then this will be a boon to the SmartPhone 2002 OS.  If not then it really is not any worse off that it already is.  For its first 24 hours, I'm happy with its potential and wish it the best.