Delphi
From Delphi
Since its initial release in 1995 Delphi has revolutionized development by allowing developers to produce efficient, superior quality software rapidly with minimal or no runtime library requirements. Delphi made component development easy and allowed developers to use a single language for development of both front-end and backend modules of an application. Delphi continues blazing a new trail for developers today with the introduction of Delphi 2006 that allows for RAD development on Win32 and .NET and even includes support for C++ and C#.
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[edit] Overview
Delphi is a Rapid Application Development (RAD) tool for Windows, originally developed by Borland Software Corporation. Version 1.0 was first released in 1995, and the latest version, Delphi 2006 (10.0) is currently shipping. A few years ago, a version for Linux (called Kylix) was also created but did not achieve as much success as Delphi for Windows. The current shipping version of Delphi 2006, is part of a product now called Borland Developer Studio 2006, which includes IDE personalities for classic Delphi for Win32, Delphi for Microsoft's .Net architecture, C# Builder, and C++ Builder.
An important strength for Delphi from it's birth to current versions is powerfull components for database development. In fact a user can create simple database applications without writing a single line of code. As easy as it is to dive into Delphi and make something usefull there is nearly unlimited power for the most advanced development projects.
The key features of the product that make it popular with loyal Delphi developers are:
- it's very easy to create forms based applications for windows, where you drag and drop controls onto forms, write a little bit of code, and you have a program. The VCL is a powerful and feature-rich component library.
- it's easy to get started, especially if you have a good book to help get you going.
- there are hundreds of thousands of third-party components (some freeware, some commercial, some open source) for Delphi. Whatever you need to do, there's a component out there to help you get your application written.
- unlike other RAD tools, like Visual Basic 6, no runtime is needed (you can have a standalone EXE)
- unlike Visual Basic and other RAD tools, Borland values compatibility highly, and even Delphi 1.0 applications can usually be made to work in the latest Delphi with only minor changes. If you want to know how the other half feels, check out the reactions when Microsoft completely abandoned Visual Basic 6 developers, when they created "Visual Basic .net". Essentially they killed millions of developers work, and forced them to rewrite all their code, and stopped selling and updating the old product (Visual Basic 6) without offering any reasonable upgrade path.
- You can write code in Delphi that targets classic Windows environments from Windows 95 and up, or the latest ".net" environments, with the same syntax, and the same powerful libraries.
[edit] Components
At the core of Delphi is it's Object Pascal compiler but Delphi is a RAD tool for it's Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
The IDE is where the developer spends most of his programming time. It contains an editor for working on Delphi units as well as a visual forms designer that generates code automatically. The IDE is a two way tool which means that the developer can make changes to the visual forms or the underlying code.
Another key part of Delphi is the included object library known as the Visual Component Library(VCL). Many VCL objects are available on the Component Palette in the IDE for visual development.
Various versions of Delphi include various utilities for resource management, image development, database access and development.
[edit] History
Delphi was originally released in 1995 by Borland for the 16 bit Microsoft Windows 3.x Operating Environment. The following year Delphi 2 was released for 32 bit Windows. A new version has been released roughly once a year.
The chief architect of Delphi was Anders Hejlsberg who later left Borland for Microsoft where he has since been a key figure in the developments of Visual J++, Visual C# and the .Net Framework.
[edit] See Also
[edit] External links
| Delphi Versions | |
|---|---|
| Win16 | Delphi 1 |
| Win32 | Delphi 2 • Delphi 3 • Delphi 4 • Delphi 5 • Delphi 6 • Delphi 7 • Delphi 2007 for Win32 |
| .NET | Delphi 8 |
| Win32 + .NET: | Borland Developer Studio 2005 • Borland Developer Studio 2006 • CodeGear RAD Studio 2007 • CodeGear RAD Studio 2009 |
| Other: | Kylix • Delphi for PHP • 3rdRail • Turbo Delphi 2006 |
| More info: | Release Dates and Codenames • Compiler Release Dates • Compiler Conditional Defines |
