I totally agree. Documents section needs [em]another [/em]overhaul. Especially in GHI 4.3, where they changed pretty much everything…
I thought the whole point was to use a powerful IDE and a productive language and framework.
Exactly, the asymmetrical multi-core architecture, but I would settle for support for symmetrical multi-core architecture.
The projects I have in mind are data sensors that do reprocessing before sending the calculated results. It would be good to have support to be able to throw the reprocessing of the sensor data and sending the data to the high throughput cores but have the low/energy saving throughput cores used to monitor the sensors for changes.
Generally when power consumption (or cost) are an important factor, you would do as little processing as possible at the edges (at the sensors), and save all the heavy lifting until as late as possible. This also leaves you the possibility of changing your processing steps without having to do in-field updates of lots of hardware.
I don’t know your particular situation, etc, etc, etc, but that’s the general strategy.
If your running on batteries the chances are you are using radio to send the data back. That uses power and often incurs data charges too.
1 and 4 are needed, 5 is available from a lib from Paolo Patierno not? 6 yes indeed would be nice.
1 I can see, but I’d rate it a lower priority for myself. 4 is a must-have nowdays. 5 is quite important, 6 I’m sure is a simple bug in current versions. 2 is a mixture (DPWS is probably less and less relevant as time goes on), but security is very important. 3 would be very nice, if only a single format (JSON?). For 7, WPF is available now on the bigger devices, or at least, it was in 4.1.
I’m surprised nobody mentioned that NETMF development should be possible in VS 2013. And every required dll should be available as a Nuget package.
When I first played with Gadgeteer about 2 years ago I was annoyed that I needed to install so many different things (in the right order). Now I come back and I can’t even use it in the most recent version of VS. Microsoft will be moving the whole web development out of the .NET Framework with ASP.NET vNext. They can do the same with NETMF so that (almost) no additional installations should be required.
Of course the price of the devices is also an issue, but this is more for GHI than MS. Currently it is cheaper to buy a Raspberry Pi and run my C# program in Linux + Mono on it than on any Gadgeteer device. Although the RasPi with its powerful graphics abilities is an overkill for most applications.
@ MichaelR
The performance, power and functionality by far outweigh those things for me.
Raspberry Pi is too big, power hungry and too slow to boot for my applications. There are other embedded MS products that offer all the things that you mention.
@ hagster -
I agree you on these facts, because of the OS based Pi, against NETMF which is no OS, but however, it should be interesting to understand why this much more powerful board can be cheaper than a G120 for example ?
Is it due to the NETMF integration effort that GHI must add over the pure hardware considérations ?
Is it due to the volume of expected sales ?..
Any args ?
@ hagster
I totally agree with you about performance, power and functionality being priorities. I have not used Raspberry Pi boards but I have used hardkernel odroid (samsung big.little multi core based) ones.
Lately my projects have had required low power usage. The cost development time has been so much less using netmf than any other platform.
I would just like to see Microsoft keep moving netmf ahead.
I honestly believe the quality of the G120 board is far better than the sample of Raspberry Pi boards I have seen.
@ hagster
If you work on those devices all the time then it may not be an issue. But I am a .NET developer who usually writes web and other programs and only plays with small devices as a hobby. I am the kind of developer whom MS wanted to target with the NETMF and I don’t want to step back and work with old tools.
MS has plenty of experience with VS and Nuget so my wishes cannot be a big effort for them.
Performance, power and functionality all depend more of the hardware than the software. You should address those wishes to GHI.
Of course the RasPi needs more power than the Gadgeteer boards. It was built to run an OS so it has more components built in. You may not need them in your applications, but if you run them connected to power then why bother?
I have both a Raspberry Pi and a Cerbuino Bee and they are both roughly the same size and price. Only the Pi can do much more.
@ MichaelR - VS2013 support for both vanilla and Gadgeteer wont be far away…
Maybe you should have a look at Raspberry Pi - Wikipedia
I use mine as a media center. It grabs the HD videos from my NAS via Wifi and displays them on the TV which is connected via HDMI. How much additional hardware would you need to make the G120 do that?
But this discussion should be about feedback to Microsoft. 
Size is fooling our eyes. The Pi contains soo much hardware and connectors on very little space, and thats great.
The Cobra II is a huge board, because of all those G-sockets etc. but not designed to be really small. For final products, a G120 based system can be small.
Its always about finding the right tool to do the job, the complexity of setting up The Pi to do some simple IO controls was immense to me.
A powerful programming framework that can run on really small devices is a delicate balance.
This is a very relative term. I do not make any home video centers with RPi, so for me it is useless. From my point of view, Raptor can do much more.
What truly impresses me, though, is the hype that RPi created. Everyone is talking about that, although I’m not sure I’ve seen anything truly cool made with RPi.
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RPi is a completely different product aimed at a completely different market. If it suits what you wish to build better then use it. If you need something smaller, lower power, but quick to develop on then NETMF might fit.
Choosing the right parts and trade off’s for your project is what good engineering is about.
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Raspberry Pi: 85.60mm x 56mm x 21mm
FEZ Spider: 57mm x 52mm x 11.65mm
FEZ Hydra: 87mm x 62mm x 8.35mm
FEZ Raptor: 102mm x 87mm x 7.5mm
So, yeah, the Spider is a little smaller, the rest are significantly larger. Plus, for all the Gadgeteer solutions, you must have AT LEAST a power module, and any others you need. To similarly outfit a Gadgeteer mainboard with all the “modules” that the Pi already has would make it take up a LOT more space.
The Pi can use as little as 500ma, which wouldn’t be significantly more than a similarly equipped G400 plus modules. What does the current GHI boilerplate USB power forum answer recommend for power supply?
Well, yes, that’s definitely an issue if you reboot your system often.
The problem with NETMF is that the only niche it REALLY fills perfectly is with developers who want/need a highly-integrated .NET development environment. For every other primary concern, there’s a better choice elsewhere.
Cheaper -> Arduino/AVR, RPi, pretty much anything
More powerful -> Pretty much anything because of NETMF’s interpreted nature
More features -> RPi
Lower power -> Arduino/AVR, bare ARM, because of the current state of NETMF’s low-power modes
Larger community -> Arduino, RPi
Don’t get me wrong, I love NETMF, but it needs some serious love.