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I am a Turbo pascal/Borland pascal/Delphi developer, since 1987. I currently only use Delphi for maintaining old tools that I (and some friends of mine) use privately. Unfortunately all my professional codes have already been ported, some even with my direct involvement :) to other development languages and environments, sad. OK, sorry for this digressive introduction. Let me get to my question.
I currently own Delphi 7 professional. It was an expensive move, never worth what it costed, just for my hobbyist usage.
Now, this XE Starter edition has appeared. At 149€, it looks like a good deal. It seems that it comes with almost everything I use now, and with some things I miss; unicode and generics, specially.
Do you know if there is any hiden (bad) surprise in this offer? So, should I stay or should I go?
What are in your opinion the pros and cons of such a move?
thanks.
The worst "cons" of Starter is absence of VCL sources (not mentioned in feature matrix, but discussed in blogs
If you're a hobbyist using Delphi 7 you might as well try to switch to FreePascal. Comes with full source :-)
Given the missing VCL source AND no command line compiler, Delphi Starter Edition is a NonStarter IMO.
The only real downside is that Unicode migration can be a significant hurdle if you're using a lot of third-party components, especially if they haven't been updated since the Delphi 7 days.
Other than that, there's no good reason not to update, and plenty to be gained from it. Generics, Unicode, enumerators, extended RTTI, newer OS support, touch, etc, not to mention an upgrade path to future releases.
TClientDataset is also missing.
Could be an issue for some of you.
Only you can determine which features are important to you. Please refer to the Delphi XE feature matrix (PDF). It tells you what features are in each edition of Delphi XE. You should also look at the "What's New" document, which also includes links to what was new in the previous three versions (which, even then, still doesn't get you all the way back to Delphi 7).
As opposed to what Mason says, I'd say the real "upside" is that it will have Unicode strings.
If you want to handle Unicode in your hobbyist programming, then yes, do the upgrade. That was the real reason why I upgraded from Delphi 4 to Delphi 2009.
Generics are nice, but not essential. Theoretically, Delphi 7 will be able to program most-everything you'd want, except for Unicode.
The XE versions have a much nicer IDE, Unicode, and support for Vista and Win7. I'd go for it if I was still on Delphi 7.
If you mostly want to use it for hobby purposes then staying with an 8-year old development environment and a language that doesn't have a lot of new features is not a good move.
If you want to learn new technologies (as applied to Delphi) or even want to apply knowledge you acquired from other environments to make your life easier in Delphi world then XE is a good choice (as you mentioned Generics, Unicode, extended RTTI, Touch, etc goodness).
Now, is Starter a good choice? Depends on your needs. Check out the feature matrix (as suggested) and decide for your self.
But as the language/IDE goes, then definitely go for it.
If I had not already upgraded to Delphi XE, I would certainly go for this offer, even without source code. I am also a hobbiest, and for me, the upgrade cost for professional every couple of years is worthwhile. There are a lot of more expensive hobbys, believe me.
And what about 64 Bit code. I think even the XE does not compile programs for 64 bit which means limitations exist for max 4GB for programs and etc etc. Let's hope they release a 64 bit version soon for XE.
Don't do this mistake.
Wait for a stable version to be released.
See this: Brand new installed Delphi XE freezes without reason (it is QC 90864 Delphi bug)
In my opinion XE2 is appealing because OSX support and 64 bit compiler but such support comes only in pro and upper editions.
So, unless you have $1000 to spend (pro edition), starter could frustrate you because the lack of features that you already have with Delphi 7.
Regards.
What should I worry about if I move to Delphi 2007 to 2010?
I've checked this article and there was a lot of interesting stuff but not precisely for this jump that I need.
To clarify my question and situation:
I have all 3td party components' code.
I will need the unicode, but not this year.
I need win 7 support - themes, form resize problems and etc.
I will be happy to have a decent help system.
Is ADO (dbGO) improved?
What headache to expect?
Thanks!
I will be happy to have a dissent help
system.
Sorry for you, the help content of Delphi2010 is better than Delphi2007, but far away from Delphi7.
There are many resources about unicode migration, and it is very easy to find.
I will just insist on 3rd party libs which is the difficult part.
You have the source code, good, but considering fixing unicode relates issue inside these components is very ambitious !
My advice: Check the compatibility of your 3rd party libs, check your code compatibility - fix all warnings, follow this good white paper from CodeGear : Delphi and Unicode
http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/38980
I need win 7 support - themes, form
resize problems and etc.
You already have themes in Delphi 2007. Not that 2007 is at 100% prepared for Win7 but themes is what important for most users so this is IMHO not argument to upgrate.
I will need the unicode, but not this
year.
If you plan to use Delphi 2011 and release Mac version of your software, why not do it step by step and take Unicode headache (?) today? I am not sure of answer, just worrying :-) I am in this situation, already have license for Delphi 2009 but still unused because of Unicode so I am in 2007.
A "Beginner" approach to Delphi 7/2007 (ansi strings) ports to 2009/2010 (unicode strings) is to blindly search and replace ALL occurrences of String and replace with AnsiString, similarly, blindly changing all instances of Char to AnsiChar. This quickly reveals itself to be painful, and stupid, and wrong. Thus chastened, the user (without reading the transition guides published by Embarcadero, written by Nick Hodges) will retreat and lick their wounds, and consider sticking with Delphi X forever (where X is in the set of [7,2007,myFavouriteVersionHere]).
The second approach is to download already-updated versions of any components you need, and only update the components you really can't find any newly updated source code for, yourself, and then proceed to updating your application code.
I find that it is worth doing this, if you either sell your application for money, or if you rely on your application to be of some usefulness to you, or your company. It is not only a question of upgrading to handle compiler differences, but upgrading, as you say, to handle platform differences. And not only the platform differences that you are mentioning above, but ones you didn't mention, like UAC, and changes in user-permissions on files and folders, and other priveleges. Does your application require the ability to write to folders inside C:\Program Files, and other things, etc? Those need to be fixed.
If your application is a typical "ball of mud", developed incrementally, and without an elegant object oriented design, and if (as is typical) your app doesn't even really meet the recommended specs that Microsoft published as part of Windows XP, in 2002, the you really have some catching up to do.
If it's all too much for you, you could consider contracting the work out. An expert could probably port the application from an old delphi version, to a new one, in a few hours, and train you how to do the maintenance from that point forward.
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I have made the question "community wiki" - it is subjective.
I have upgraded to Delphi 2009 because of unicode support. I have found the anonymous methods a very interesting and useful language feature, I can't say the same about generics. The generics seemed important for me before the upgrade to Delphi 2009, but I have never used them and probably will never use. As for Delphi 2010, I don't need the attributes and I don't like the whole idea of extended RTTI - that is why Delphi 2009 is better for me. Sometimes I hit one or other annoying bug in Delphi 2009 IDE, but they are not critical and I can live with them. I have no plans to develop software for Mac or Linux. Sure sometime I will need 64-bit support, so I think about upgrading to Delphi 2012 (XE2).
Are where any more reasons that can force me to upgrade from Delphi 2009?
Well, you seem to have it all worked out already. Probably the biggest difference, if you're not interested in the RTTI or in touch (which nobody seems to care much about) is the improved Generics. If you're not using them, you really should be. Generics are one of those features that you don't really see the use for until you start working with them, but then you start seeing things to use them for everywhere. They make all sorts of things much, much simpler... when they work. Unfortunately, Generics support is kinda broken in D2009, but they fixed it up for 2010.
Also, even if you don't use RTTI yourself, there's a lot of development work being done on libraries that use it. DeHL, for example, which provides a ton of useful containers and other classes, only supports D2010.
All in all, it's worth updating from D2009 to D2010. If you have no interest in cross-platform, you may want to skip D2011, but I wouldn't skip D2010.
The Embarcadero wiki has a list of most of the improvements. Delphi 2010 is really about polishing what they already have, and I'd suggest upgrading just for bug fixes, if nothing else. The cross-platform and 64-bit support is bound to be disruptive, so if you want to give that time to shake out, you should go with the most stable version available.
There are also lots of tweaks to the debugger and IDE to make you more productive. Individually none of them are really big bangs, but together it's a nice improvement.
And once you start using Generics in 2009, you're going to find yourself bitten by a massive, MASSIVE oversight in very short order: TList<T> is missing Exchange and Extract methods. It's not a big deal for TList<T> itself, but it's a major problem for TObjectList<T> if your list is going to own the objects.
Not that I knew of. ;)
I'd wait with an update until they ship the x64 compiler.
There are bugs unsolved since Delphi 1 (see Why do InvalidateRow and InvalidateColum suddenly not work? ).
Why should I upgrade? To get the same nasty bugs? I don't want to pay for bugs.
Well I am almost reproducing answer of RRUZ here, cause it is exactly what i would reply. :) (Hope that he doesn't get angry)
But I am adding some comments...
Verify this white paper from Andreano Lanusse.
Reasons to Migrate to Delphi XE – What you might have missed since Delphi 7
Delphi 2010
Windows 7, Multi-Touch and Gesture support, Direct-2D; I found only Direct-2D useful until now... and yet, only in special cases...
IDE Insight, Source Code Formatter, Search task bar
Background compilation
Enhanced RTTI; like you, I don't found RTTI useful to me, yet
Breakpoints in threads, freeze/thaw threads
DataSnap – HTTP protocol support; If your application doesn't use HTTP protocol, this is useless
Delphi XE
DataSnap – HTTPS, JavaScript, REST support
Subversion integration; you can get this partially with JVCL...
Regular Expression library; that is a useful thing. That I was missing since years ago..
AQTime, CodeSite, Beyond Compare, Final Builder; that is a list of useful apps, but I am not sure of what you really get
Cloud Services and Cloud Deployment;
Let's wait to new versions announcements to see what we can add to this list. :)
One thing that I must to add is that this month Embarcadero got a nice offer to upgrades, even if you are an oldIDEuser. Even if you are planing to upgrade later, maybe you should take a look, as after that, you will not get the discount price of upgrades...
Well, I will be somewhat critic on this I think...
The reasons to keep up to date with the Delphi versions are not fully technical. The point I'm afraid is: what if no one buys Delphi cause old versions are enough -technically talking- to satisfy their needs? Then is no longer business for Embarcadero, then Delphi dies.
The problem of course is the business model: Embarcadero should lower their prices, so everyone can buy a Delphi version, even old Delphi x.0 dinosaurs, even hobbyists stuck in Turbo Delphi 2006 or even the small businesses that are using Free Pascal out there; that way they can finance the investment in a longer term fashion and with a wider scope (they can target other platforms easily with more revenue).
When you go against common sense, it has a price to be payed. And that applies for the Delphi community members that do not buy Delphi to support Embarcadero development of the product, and that applies for Embarcadero too that is dropping a part of the market with a solid marketing power.
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I got tired of trying Delphi every year hoping that I will find a stable version to upgrade from my good old Delphi 7.
Should I bother to try Delphi 2009? Or it is as unstable as the previous versions and should I wait until Delphi 2010?
Thanks
This may be an open-ended question, but an important one none-the-less. Borland/Code Gear has not had a consistent track record with Delphi releases and I settled on Delphi 7 for much longer than expected, as did many in the Delphi community. Delphi 7 had an awesome help system, sadly abandoned by Borland thanks to some unmentionable internal politics.
A year ago we moved to Delphi 2007 for Win32 when Code Gear appeared the re-focus on native Win32 code. This seems to have been a good move for them and has produced product equal to, or even better than Delphi 7. Admittedly, the help in Delphi 2007 is awful and Code Gear have acknowledged this as an issue. An issue that has been rectified with the release of Delphi 2009.
We have recently taken Delphi 2009 on and are currently migrating our code to the new Unicode platform. Code Gear has moved fast to establish D2009 as a solid, reputable development platform with Update 1 already out, addressing initial user-reported issues. This is very encouraging.
Delphi 2007/2009 makes for one of the best native dev platforms for Vista/2008 whilst maintaining seamless backward compatibility in older Win32 platforms.
We depend on Delphi for developing real-time television automation software. The simple answer to your question is - Yes.
Only wait for the next incarnation of Delphi if you want native 64bit.
This is kind of an open-ended question, but the short answer is that Delphi 2009 is stable, fast, and a leap forward from older versions (especially 2005).
The IDE has evolved a bit since Delphi 7 and has more Visual Studio and Eclipse-like features. It also has some updated controls that make building the more 'modern' Windows applications easier, like the Ribbon you see in Office. I find the response time in drag and drop operations to be a lot quicker than previous versions, and overall the reaction time in IDE operations just seem a lot snappier.
So far the IDE hasn't crashed on me at all, but I'm admittedly not a heavy day-to-day user. I mainly use Delphi 2009 for a side project I work on in my own time.
So far so good. Very stable, faster than even Delphi 2007 (which was no slouch, either) and there are more language, component and general productivity features, fixes and improvements since Delphi 7 than you can shake a stick at.
Read the literature, watch some videos and try the trial:
http://blogs.codegear.com/pawelglowacki/2008/11/03/38527
http://blogs.codegear.com/pawelglowacki/2008/11/03/38527
http://blogs.codegear.com/nickhodges/2007/03/28/33579
http://www.stevetrefethen.com/blog/VCLAndRTLEnhancementsSinceDelphi7D7.aspx
Admittedly I have only been using the trial version. No crashes yet, a few small problems with intellisense (or code completion), but I'm getting similar types of problem in Visual studio. Intellisense seems to be flakey anywhere. I'm not getting any of those frustrating delays while the ide is setting up intellisense lists, which is a plus. So on the whole looking pretty good so far.
Delphi 2009 has worked find for me so far. As others have already mentioned, it doesn't crash or anything dramatic.
It's worth the upgrade just for the new generics stuff. It's about time we got this in Delphi Win32 land. Having said that, some of the standard templates are a little raw. I've had problems with access violation in TObjectStack.
I would suggest waiting until one or two service packs come out. Changing the default string from an AnsiString to an UnicodeString is bound to cause headaches for awhile, especially in 3rd party component packages. You should really investigate which components that are 'must have' for your development and ensure that they have a new version that works with Delphi 2009.
I would suggest waiting until one or two service packs come out.
This is the problem. We don't know if Embarcadero plans to release other patches.
i have used trial version of delphi 2009, its awsome!!!no crashes,stable ide some cool new feature.....its just awsome!
Unfortunately not stable. ActionToolbar and ActionManu are causing IDE exceptions all the time :( TActionToolbar on TCoolbar is very flickering. TListView (with autosized columns) is refreshing very slowly when maximizing the form - it looks horrible.
Automatic code templates are horrible, unusable. Jumping between words (ctrl + left/right) ommits operators - it is very difficult to navigate through code.
TAB still does not work to make an identation (You have to use ctrl + shift + i).
Not good software, unfortunately :(
Can anyone recommend some decent resources for a .NET developer who wishes to get a high level overview of the Delphi language?
We are about acquire a small business whose main product is developed in Delphi and I am wanting to build up enough knowledge to be able to talk the talk with them.
Books, websites etc all appreciated.
Thanks.
DelphiBasics gives a good overview of basic syntax, library functions etc.
Essential Delphi is a free e-book by Marco Cantu that should give a good overview, also of the VCL
Feel free to ask around here as well, or in the Delphi newsgroups, if you encounter specific issues :)
[edit] #Martin:
There's a free "Turbo" edition available at the Codegear/Embarcadero website. I guess it has some limitations, so you could also try downloading the trial version.
There's also a Delphi wiki
This even has a "Beginning Delphi" page with lots of external links on it. (some of them already mentioned)
http://www.delphifeeds.com/ is a good place to start, it has most news about what is going on in the delphi community.
There are a number of videos by Alister Christie at codegearguru - check them out :)
edit... #Martin, check out the Turbo products at CodeGear
#Martin there is a free version.
Turbo Delphi
If you are comfortable with c# you will see many similarities with Delphi.
I also found the community surrounding the newsgroups to be active and helpful. They have a smilar concept to MVPs they were called Team B (but as Borland doesn't own them the name may have changed now).