I have done a search on Google for applications writen with Datasnap and didn't find much information.
What well know applications are written in Datasnap 2009 / 2010 ?
Is using Datasnap 2010 a viable choice compared to using other frameworks like RemObjects, Midware or kbmMW.
Cheers
AJ
I think the applications written with datasnap will be mainly custom build applications and therefore not listed on any public website. At least all projects I have worked on that used datasnap were custom build applications.
Related
I need to take a huge Delphi XE application (backed by proprietary SQL server NexusDB) and begin providing my clients the ability to access the system in new ways:
Thinner Windows client for slow/VPN connections
Mobile/Tablet
Web
DataSnap appropriate for this or is introducing a middle tier the wrong way about providing remote/mobile access? Other solutions/ideas welcome.
(I have XE2 Enterprise but am stuck on XE Enterprise for awhile.)
DataSnap is being aggressively positioned by Embarcadero as a Multi-platform connectivity solution, where servers are written in Delphi, and mobile connectors are available (in XE2 and later) for a variety of mobile device platforms. So the quick answer is yes, it is suitable in general.
Is it suitable for you? You haven't said much that would help me answer that question; You are willing to buy Enterprise or Architect SKUs of Delphi, so I would guess yes.
If it was me, I'd look for a solution that implements a pure simple REST architecture that is available to every system out there, mobile or otherwise, no matter what language or platform, but I haven't got a suggested alternative because it seems to me that SOAP is nearly dead and that there is no universal replacement technology out there that does everything that soap client/server systems do. I'd be tempted to consider "roll your own REST+json" or evaluate Remobject's product offerings too, and select a path that makes sense for you, from a business and technical point of view.
Datasnap is fine, but it's not the only option. It's probably the simplest and most easy to roll out option currently available, and the only one "out of box" ready to go in XE2 if you want apple, android, and a few others, right away.
That depends on your security needs, and the way you're providing data to clients. As I often pointed out, dbExpress-Datasnap has big security flaws (while the DCOM version is not well suited outside a LAN, and does not offer out of the box mobile devices support).
A web application would have less issues because the datasnap-web server connection would be probaby internal, it would be up to the web application to ensure data protection.
I read this question but was somehow not satisfied with the answers.
I also quickly read (as suggested in that question) the last chapter of Marco Cantù 2010 Handbook, from which I quote the following (I think I can quote such a short text):
I [Marco Cantù] do have a lot of
investment in server side web and REST
applications written in Delphi, and in
the recent years I've started playing
with and introducing at conferences a
Delphi Web Application REST
Framework119 (that is, DWARF), which
at this time is still not publicly
available... simply because it is too
sketchy and unfinished to be
published. I've seen other ongoing
efforts to clone Rails in Delphi and
offer other REST server architectures.
I think that if you want to build a
very large REST application
architecture you should roll out your
own technology or use one of these
prototypical architectures.
Considering that I own Delphi XE Professional and DataSnap is not in there and I would like to consider to write large applications too according to the above comments it seems DataSnap is not an option.
Is there even a commercial solution for this? I don't want to consider "my own implementation of REST", I would like to create a webserver that uses some of my datamodules where I use the DAC I choose (Devart in this case).
Final note: my goal is to write the backend for a large web application, on the client I would like to use Ext JS 4.0, but I want to do all the client work in javascript, to take full advantage of EXT JS, so basically I need a webserver just for the data and tracking the state, not for serving webpages.
To create your REST services, try our Open Source mORMot project. Now it is a well known and stabilized project, used world wide in production.
You can use any DAC with the current state of the framework by implementing a custom TSQLRestServerStatic class (similar to the TSQLRestServerStaticInMemory class, but calling your DAC): so you'll benefit for the ORM and the JSON RESTful architecture, together with the high-speed http.sys kernel-mode server.
The SQLite3 engine is NOT mandatory with our framework, even if it was designed to work better with it.
If you will start an application from scratch, I think the mORMot is a good option if Delphi is your only option. If you choose datasnap you'll have to live with the problems of performance and stability.
I wrote an article on my blog talking about performance and stability with DataSnap (and mORMot) in large applications, you can see it on the following link:
DataSnap analysis based on Speed & Stability tests
I think you should have a look at kbmMW, there is a way to implement a basic REST server based on an event driven HTTP server.
Check news.components4developers.com news groups, there you will have a lot of documentation.
FireHttp is a high-performance Web server based on Delphi/Object Pascal language. It supports HTTP 1.1, HTTPS (SSL/TLS), WebSocket, GZip, Deflate, IOCP, EPOLL. It adopts multi-process+multi-threading model, has good stability and concurrency performance, and provides SDK source code. Developers can use SDK to quickly build high-performance cross-platform Web applications.
I'm toying around with Delphi. Most of my desktop development is done in .Net, and embedded systems with C. I've done some web development in RoR & Python (Django, CherryPy) I am interested in taking a crack at a project that would be a web service (REST or SOAP) with a native client and a web client.
Because I've recently been re-inspired to learn Delphi, I'm curious what the options are to build the web service and web client with Delphi. Most of the Delphi documentation is a little dated but so far I've found these choices:
DataSnap
WebSnap
WebBroker
IntraWeb
Data Abstract and RemObjects SDK from RemObjects
I get the impression that WebSnap is dead, but the other technologies are still being developed. Is there any guidance about which technology to investigate?
p.s. I realize that Delphi isn't a wildly popular choice for web development, but I'm curious to try since I've been having fun learning the VCL.
You could perhaps add our Synopse SQLite3 Framework to your list.
There is some interresting features:
ORM approach to manage your data (i.e. define and access your data as regular Delphi classes), on both Server and Client Side - similar to ActiveRecord in RoR ;) ;
Multi-tier architectured;
no database or dll to deploy (uses embedded SQLite, without any external dll) - you can even not use SQLite, but a simple and fast in-memory database written in pure Delphi (I've begun a fork of Zeos, to be database independent);
Very optimized HTTP/1.1 multi-threaded Server (but you can communicate via other protocols, or even purely locally within the same process, without any Client/Server);
Data transmission uses standard JSON, so you can receive the same data in either a Delphi client, either an AJAX client;
Client/Server is RESTful and written in very optimized Delphi code (some part were even written in asm after profiling, for speed and low memory use);
Can also be used to define DataSnap-like Client-Server JSON RESTful Services, if the RESTful approach is not enough for you;
Full Open Source, compiles and work from Delphi 6 up to XE (with full Unicode support for all versions, because it's based on UTF-8 from the engine core).
Web Service Toolkit is a web services package for FPC, Lazarus and Delphi; “Web Service Toolkit” is meant to ease web services consumption and creation by FPC, Lazarus and Delphi users. Better check out from svn as the 0.5 release is actualy outdated.
RESTful server side method calls hosted as an ISAPI dll or just use the Indy HTTP Server component. It's really a quite simple and powerful approach and lets you get started quickly without a big learning curve.
DelphiMVCFramework is a powerful RESTful framework used also for website development
https://github.com/danieleteti/delphimvcframework
DMVCFramework features
RESTful (RMM Level 3) compliant
Fancy URL with parameter mappings
Server side generated pages using Mustache templates
Messaging extension using STOMP and Apache ActiveMQ or Apache Apollo (beta)
Can be used in load balanced environment using Redis or MySQL as state server
Integrated RESTClient
Works with DelphiXE3 or better
Integrated Logging System
It is really simple to use. You can be productive in minutes!
Here's the DMVCFramework Developers Guide
https://danieleteti.gitbooks.io/delphimvcframework/content/
If you need support, there is the official facebook group with more than 600 users https://www.facebook.com/groups/delphimvcframework/
I'm the main developer but there are more than 6 active contributors.
WebHub is another well established, though lesser known third party Delphi web framework.
Couple other choices that can be used to build a webservices server, somewhat simlar to datasnap or remobjects/dataabstract, are below. I did some work years ago with kbmMW and it's a solid library. I think both kbmMW and RealThinCLient have free and/or open source versions:
RealThinClient
kbmMW
We have a web front end for our Delphi server app written in Delphi Prism/ASP.NET. It works great and allows us to leverage our Delphi language skills in a .NET environment.
This one is very old,but a lot of things have changed,I myself had left Intraweb and gone to UNIGUI,since its based on EXTJS and produces single page applications.
Well Its been two years since I left my last message on this posts,
although uniGUI is still the only solution already made for creating SPA in Delphi,it seems that IW17 will be a real cutting edge,an waters divisor in the history of Delphi.Client side rendering without needing server communication,Wordpress integration,no need to write a single line in javascript like other frameworks,websockets,fibers,our "Delphi React".
Hallo, Does anyone perhaps know how to interface with a MemCached server (linux) from within a Delphi win32 application?
I am unable to find a general C DLL client, or perhaps delphi code to communicate to the server.
Any suggestions/help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Eric Grobler
A Delphi client for Memcached can be found on google code:
http://code.google.com/p/delphimemcache/
Since the protocol is fairly simple, just about any library which handles telnet should be able to handle communication with the server. This includes Indy, Synapse, and ICS. I based this off of the protocol documentation.
My preference would be to implement using Synapse. Synapse uses an object model rather than a component model, and is very easy to use and extend. The latest developers version (available via SVN) supports Delphi 2009 and I would expect soon to support Delphi 2010.
Thanks for your feedback, I will try a telnet communication.
(and have a look at Synapse)
Regards
Eric
In the sample Delphi web service tutorials I've read, they tend to build a web service that returns a simple string or integer, e.g.
http://blogs.codegear.com/pawelglowacki/2008/12/18/38624
However, I read it's possible in .NET to build a web service that returns a DataSet or even an object. Is this possible in Delphi 2009, and if so where can I find more info on this?
Also, what's your opinion on tools for building a web service, between Delphi and .NET?
Delphi 2009 has full suport for returning classes and datasets from webservices.
Datasnap is the framework that supports datasets you can find more information in this video by Nick Hodges, Delphi Product manager, this whitepaper by Marco Cantù (whitepaper extracted from his book “Delphi 2009 Handbook” and this code by Bruno Lichot.
Yes, it is possible to do so; you can do it by using Delphi's DataSnap with SoapConnection.
DataSnap is Delphi's multi-tier solution. In Delphi 2009 it saw a major update, and named DataSnap 2009, but DataSnap 2009 doesn't yet support some features of old DataSnap, like using WebServices for communication. The good news is that the older DataSnap is still available in Delphi 2009, and you are not forced to use DataSnap 2009.
OK, please let me know if the following is correct:
DataSnap 2009 can transmit datasets, but does not support communication via web service. i.e. both the client and server must be written in Delphi 2009?
Plain old DataSnap can transmit datasets using web service, but requires COM?
So next question would be, what would be use to consume a dataset returned by a web service?
As far as I know, .Net and Java clients can access DataSnap 2009 server too.
Old DataSnap doesn't use COM for SoapConnection, but COM is used for other kinds of connections (e.g. socket connection).
So next question would be, what would
be use to consume a dataset returned
by a web service?
On the server side, you can put DatasetProviders which connect to the dataset controls, and provide datasets for clients.
On the client side, ClientDataset is used to receive data provided by DatasetProviders on the server.