question about socket programming

Let's clarify some of this. There are two levels of socket access in .NET. High-level and low-level. High-level is TCPListener (server) and TCPClient (client). The low-level is a wrapper of Windows Sockets. The low-level API objects can be either synchronous or asynchronous. The Asynchronous methods are more difficult to use and I wouldn't recommend them. In fact, I can't see a lot of reason to use the low-level objects anyway. I recommend using TCPListener and TCPClient blocking sockets. If you want to have your sockets run without "blocking" your application, run them in threads. This is how 98% of all socket applications work, I'd say. This is how most third party socket libraries work too. The answer to your question, I guess, is that you almost never use blocking sockets alone. You either use blocking sockets inside threads or you use asynchronous sockets. If this is all too much, I'd recommend using Indy 10. It's still in beta, but previous versions (not for .NET) have been fantastic.

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spgilmore22y ago
Let's clarify some of this. There are two levels of socket access in .NET. High-level and low-level. High-level is TCPListener (server) and TCPClient (client). The low-level is a wrapper of Windows Sockets. The low-level API objects can be either synchronous or asynchronous. The Asynchronous methods are more difficult to use and I wouldn't recommend them. In fact, I can't see a lot of reason to use the low-level objects anyway. I recommend using TCPListener and TCPClient blocking sockets. If you want to have your sockets run without "blocking" your application, run them in threads. This is how 98% of all socket applications work, I'd say. This is how most third party socket libraries work too. The answer to your question, I guess, is that you almost never use blocking sockets alone. You either use blocking sockets inside threads or you use asynchronous sockets. If this is all too much, I'd recommend using Indy 10. It's still in beta, but previous versions (not for .NET) have been fantastic.