Is VS2010 handling serial communication any better?

[alexlyf]

We have a program that handle RS-232 and RS-485 serial communication for data logging and considering to migrate to the newer VB from VB2002. To my understanding we will need to rewrite the communication parts with the new .Net.

Should we choose VS2008 or wait for VS2010?

Thanks for any help in advance.
Alex

[gep13]

Hey,

I think this question might be better asked in the General Developer Forum, no?

Gary

[Hack]

I think this question might be better asked in the General Developer Forum, no?

Yes...Moved

[gep13]

Hey,

I would recommend that you download the Express Edition of each one, 2008 and 2010, and see which one best suits your needs.

Bear in mind that 2010 is still in Beta, and not due for release until April this year.

Gary

[dbasnett]

The SerialPort in 2008 seems to be very stable. What is the general structure of how you handle serial communications today?

[Jenner]

I don't think there is any changes to the SerialPort object from 2008 to 2010. Regardless, I've done some highly complex streaming things with the SerialPort in 2008 and it's perfectly fine.

[DickGrier]

AFAIK, there are no changes for VS2010. What problems are you seeing? Perhaps these should be addressed.

[alexlyf]

Thank you all for the reply.

We don't have any experience using SerialPort class yet but are interested to know more before making any major programming platform upgrade.

[DickGrier]

What do you want to know? Its use is fairly straight forward. I have a description (and example code for a number of applications) of its use in my book, Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications 4. If you have specific questions, feel free to ask them, and I or someone else here will try to address them.

[alexlyf]

Thanks, Richard. We actually have your 3rd edition publication.

We will check out the book.

[gep13]

Hey,

Since you are new to these versions of Visual Studio, I would really recommend that you give each of them a try, you are not going to lose anything, as they are both free. Download them and install them, they can be installed on the same machine.

Gary

[Jenner]

Yes, Richard's book is invaluable. We got a copy as well. If you're doing any kind of complex serial communications, it's the codex on the matter.

[DickGrier]

Hi,

The 4th includes a complete discussion of the built-in serial port object, along with examples that use it (and examples that employ other serial support that isn't included in the 3rd Edition). You may want to consider getting a more recent copy. Still, feel free to ask specific questions.

Dick

[Shaggy Hiker]

There was a HUGE improvement in serial processing between 2003 and 2005. I never used 2002, but I did use 2003 for serial work, and it was pretty bad. I have also written serial handling for 2005, and it was quite a considerable improvement (since serial handling wasn't directly supported in 2003, nearly anything was a considerable improvement). I don't know if there has been a change with 2008, but for RS-232, things got good back in 2005.