Interface programing to PC

Rod · Joined: 15 Sep 2003 Posts: 3 Location: South Africa

Hi All
I need to build test programs to run on the PC. These programs take information from the ports (USB RS232 Printer Port) and display the the results. I really don't want to wast time building GUI windows programs. But I need to test the interface to PCs. I have been told to try two pragrams for Windows. Borland Delphi v7 and Microsoft Visual Basic.net. Please could you advise me which of the two have all the libaries and a quick application builder? Or if there is any other programs you can recommend?
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Thanks
Rod

dyeatman · Joined: 06 Sep 2003 Posts: 1934 Location: Norman, OK

I have been using Delphi versions 4, 5, then 6 for the last 5 years now and I love it. It typically takes me less than one day to develop a fully operational application. The drag/drop RAD is (in my opinion) far better than Visual C++ and Visual Basic (I own VC 6.0 and VB 5). The VCL llibrary is also very extensive and version 6+ includes Kylix, Corba and COM support.

Haplo · Joined: 06 Sep 2003 Posts: 659 Location: Sydney, Australia

I think this is a matter of personal opinion. I've always found VB easier and more efficient than Delphi.

TSchultz · Joined: 08 Sep 2003 Posts: 66 Location: Toronto, Canada

The answer depends largely on how proficient you are in a particular language, and how well you know the strength/weaknesses on the complete environment.

I have used Delphi, VB, and C. I like them all and they each have advantages and disadvantages. My personal choice is normally Visual Basic 6, as I have not been overly impressed with .NET. It is not really a new VB version, but rather almost a different language.

Over the years I have been able to do some things in VB that it is not supposed to do. I tend to use API's quite a bit, and external C routines in OCX's or DLLs to get around most of the limitations.

Another factor that influences these decisions is will anyone else be working on the program, either during development or in the future. Another point is will you want to port the software to another OS such as Linux.

The bottom line is that if you know a particular environment well, and fully understand the task at hand, you should be able to develop the necessary software with any of the environments. Somethimes the "best" environment is the one you already know well. Having said that I also feel it is good to know many environments and somethimes, if you have the time, learning a new environment is always good.

If you want the most flexibility use C and start working on a nice library of building blocks. Also learn the windows API, as that is usually what you need to use to "fix" some of the pitfalls of the variuous environments. If you look at VB and Delphi, many of the functions are actually wrapper calls to the API, however they do not always allow or handle all the features of that API call.

Software development is often more about dealing with bugs and "features" within the OS and programming environments as it is about performing the task at hand. Keep in mind that on average 80% of the program code will deal with the unexpected and error condictions, only 20% deals directly with the task at hand.

John Yaron · Guest

Hands down Delphi... incredible compile time and context/syntax error checking. Why did uSoft model all their garbage after Delphi... a futile attempt to compete with/mimic it.

Steve H · Guest

Watch out for .NET - I believe it only runs on NT Win2k and XP Pro - Not XP Home and not win 9x.

For in house use this may be fine - but I think we are still several years from when everyone will have XP Pro!

Steve H.