Discussing, Learning, and Using Delphi and related technologies to create Great Applications!

The Modern Delphi IDE

March, 2014

TOPIC

This month’s meeting will be a group effort, with various people at the wheel (or rather the keyboard). Delphi 7 was arguably the best Delphi IDE ever. It had the old and fast help screens (with examples!) and was complete enough to build robust database applications on Windows for several years.

But time marches on and there are new language features, new technologies to support, and enhancements in the IDE. (Some people don’t consider the changes to the IDE to be enhancements, but that’s a discussion for a different forum.) With new VCL controls, Unicode strings, anonymous methods and generics, more RTTI available, keyboard templates, Error Insight, Live Bindings, and support for touch screens with gestures, there are many reasons to upgrade.

We’ll touch on as many of these areas as we have time for and as the attendees are interested in using either Delphi 2010 or Delphi XE5. Come join us and see for yourself what you may be missing if you’re on an older version of Delphi. Perhaps you have an unwrapped box on the shelf (figuratively–I know software doesn’t come in a box anymore) and this will prompt you to start using it. Or maybe you’ll discover some of the new controls will enable you to ditch unsupported 3rd-party components which are holding you back.

At the end of the meeting, we’ll take a vote to see which version of Delphi is the best!