Delphi 2007 - The Soul of Delphi returns!

A Brief History of Time

The road has been a little rocky for Delphi developers the last few years.  Since Delphi 7 shipped, it has seemed that our beloved product has been trying to find its place in the world.  In doing so, perhaps the biggest problem was trying to be all things to all people. It's like trying to catch several frisbees at the same time: more often than not, you catch none.

So we had Delphi 8, the first .Net (only) Delphi release which everyone would rather forget (although one would say some valuable lessons were learned). Then Delphi 2005 came out, which was about as ambitious as I've seen the product get, trying to support C#, Delphi and even VB.NET in a limited fashion, adding in ALM tools, and becoming a huge lumbering IDE that you PRAYED would not crash, because of the ensuing long wait in starting it back up! BDS2006 restored my faith in the ability of the Delphi team to stabilize the product and improve its performance, and oh yes, welcome C++ back to the party.

Although BDS2006 is a rather solid product, it still started slower than Delphi 7, has the same HTML help system as before, and just didn't make the case for abandoning D7 for many Delphi coders who felt it wasn't compelling enough to upgrade.

Many people have griped in the newsgroups that they don't need C#, or C++, or even Delphi.Net. They just want to keep writing their Delphi Win32 apps. They like the idea of the refactoring engine and other IDE enhancements, but didn't want the full weight of BDS2006 for features they wouldn't even use. BDS2006 was overkill for them.

I'll ring in and say that while I sympathize with these points, I've been pretty darned productive with BDS2006. I installed my favorite add-ins (Modelmaker Code Explorer and GExperts are my two favorites), and happily worked on and maintained new and old code bases alike written in the different languages. I've even brought in some old C++ projects and felt right at home maintaining and debugging them from within a single IDE.

But a lot of people really wanted just 'a better Delphi'. No .NET, no ALM, etc. So rather than just hold off and release another 'all things to all people' release, CodeGear delivers first on its promise that they are "where developers matter" by giving the Delphi Win32 people a release just for them. C# groupies go home. There's nothing to see here!

Now, I have been specifically given permission by Codegear to share my thoughts regarding Delphi 2007, aka Spacely, as a Field Tester, an act that (again) shows that Delphi is under 'new management', willing to do things a little differently than has historically been done under Borland management.


So, what excites me about Delphi 2007?

First of all, it's faster. Not since Delphi 7 have I seen the product boot up and be as responsive across the board as it is now. This may seem like a small thing, but often it's not one or two BIG things that make a difference, it is the accumulaton of little things. I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to wait on my IDE. I don't like waiting for compiles. I hate when it when the IDE flickers and flashes its way from Edit to Debug mode. I hate having time to go make coffee while it starts up. Basically, I want to be able to get code from my brain to my project as fast as possible. Delphi 2007 sheds the weight of extra language personalities and hums up faster (and with a prettier, more Delphi splash screen to boot). I particularly notice that there are major improvements to the transition from edit to debug. The IDE is less flickery/flashy, less annoying, and quicker as a result.

Second, it's COMPATIBLE. I admit it: I'm Captain Add-In. I don't care how good Delphi is, it can always be made better by enterprising add-in developers. This time, I was able to load BDS2006 versions of popular add-ins like Castalia and Modelmaker Code Explorer without having to wait for updates of those products to be released to match the latest Delphi. Why? Because this is a 'non-breaking version'. That means that for the first time (unless I've forgotten some point release somewhere), Delphi BPL's, DCU's and DCP's are binary compatible from Delphi 2006 to Delphi 2007. Whew. If you're the kind of person who DREADS having to rebuild all your components from source, breathe a sigh of relief. YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THAT!

Here is my [pre-release] screenshot of my running Delphi 2007, add-ins and all, to prove I'm not kidding --



Then there are just SOME of the "little things" that just keep adding up to make my development experience better:

- The ability to set a breakpoint on the call stack directly in the debugger.
- The ability to enable/disable breakpoints in a toolbar button without going to the options dialog
- The ability to type in ANY PORTION of a component name in the tool palette. Want to see all your "edit" controls? Type 'Edit' and you see TEdit, TIWEdit, TAdvEdit, TcxEdit, etc. It doesn't matter how it starts or how it ends. Find your components FAST. (See image for an example of "combo" as a filter)

- The ability to save projects as 'favorites' on the home screen so they are always there.
- Lightning fast project loading



I'll add more to this space about the new "VCL for the Web" with AJAX support, and other things that are cool in D2007 in the next few days...but for now suffice it to say that this is the best/fastest Delphi I've used in a long time, and yes, that includes Delphi 7. It's pretty much a must-have upgrade for all you guys living in Delphi 5-7 land.