Timothy J. Weber wrote:
>>> I've been using ComPort lately:
>> I used it prior to moving on to AsyncPro. IIRC, occasionally it would 
>> just
>> stop sending/receiving (with no error or exception thrown). So it would 
>> act
>> as if there was nothing connected to the port.
>
> Interesting!  I've had it running 24/7 for months with no problem.

On what sort of hardware? AsyncPro problems started appearing after 
multi-core systems became commonplace.

>> Re: AsyncPro, it seems like setting the port affinity to "CPU 0-only" 
>> makes
>> it hang less often.
>
> Also interesting, and maybe points to some threading issues.

I think so too.

>> I think my next step would be to try this component:
>>
>> http://www.serial-port-control.com/serial-port-control.html
>
> Looks good!  It'll be interesting to see if it solves your problem.

Yeah, installed it a couple of days ago, just haven't had a chance to try 
it. I was a little bit put off by the naming convention, and the comments 
written in broken English. So I made a last ditch attempt to try to find a 
fix for AsyncP. :)

>> Thankfully, I created a facade pattern, so plugging in a different COM 
>> port
>> object should not be that difficult.
>
> Yes, it's a very good spot for a facade.  You never know when you'll
> need to make the same app work over TCP/IP or whatever.

My reasoning was that I've already switched libraries once, and may need to 
switch again. Are you into patterns?

>>> ("Death before .NET!" screams a tiny voice)
>>
>> What's your beef with .NET? :)
>
> Mostly a knee-jerk Microsoft boycott, I haven't looked at it enough to
> understand it deeply.  But I don't like languages controlled by one 
> company.
>
> (said with some irony, since I use Delphi... but Delphi started as a
> good solution to lots of problems I had myself, while the main problem
> that .NET seems to solve is "Microsoft is losing market share.")

On the other hand, the software architect is the same. :) Based on my brief 
encounter with C# two years ago, both the language and the IDE are not that 
much different from Delphi.

>> By the way, which version of Delphi are you using? I'm using Delphi 7.
>
> I'm using Studio 2006.  Compared to version 7, the IDE is slower and
> (for me) less stable, but there are some neat editing enhancements and
> the compiler now supports inline functions, which helped a lot with what
> I was doing at the time I upgraded.  Haven't looked at 2008 yet.

Do you think it will be around much longer? One argument I keep hearing, is 
that it's easier to find/hire C# programmers, and that Delphi programmers 
are jumping ship.

Vitaliy 

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