Delphi

Links for Delphi win32 programming.

Delphi for Win32 is great because it can produce small, native, blazing fast programs. It is faster to develop in than C, while providing similar fast speeds when running. It’s TObject tree, is more handily constructed to do just about any real world programming task in short order than nearly any other run time library. Unlike .Net which is clunky, not at your fingertips, the classic Delphi VCL is just a dream to work with.

There is a migration path to .NET development within the MS Visual Studio IDE via Delphi Prism.

The most popular versions of Delphi Win/32 are:

Delphi 7 – stability and the best context sensitive developer help system
Delphi 2007 – the most stable of the Delphi.NET products up to then (support for .NET 2.0 framework and MS Vista), and with Win32 included as well as a redesigned MIDAS/Datasnap system DBExpress 4 to allow same driver for Win32 and .NET, and built-in UML support.
Delphi 2009 – new unicode support, plus with Delphi Prism (in the RAD Studio 2009) for .NET development with full support for .NET 3.5 framework and MS Visual Studio IDE included. Multi-tier Datasnap no longer requires COM interfaces but can also just use a direct TCP/IP port connection. Four new VCL components (BalloonHint, ButtonedEdit, CategoryPanelGroup, and LinkLabel) plus Office 2007 Ribbon support. Support for png images in Image control as well as alpha channel. New langage features include generics, anonymous methods, Unicode strings, exit with result parameter. See new features of D2009 here (pdf)
Delphi 2010 – added gesture support even for WinXP. Windows 7 support. New language features include enhanced RTTI, casting interfaces to objects, attributes, and class constructors/destructors.
Delphi XE (2011)
Delphi XE2 (2011) – new FireMonkey framework to allow MacOS executables as well as Win32/64
Delphi XE3 (2012) – updated Firemonkey framework, HTMLBuilder for HTML5/CS/javascript/PhP, Windows 8 styling compatibility, optional mobile device programming tool for iOS, Android, etc

Delphi resources

Delphi wiki

DelphiFeeds.com – collection of feeds from Delphi-related blogs

Jedi VCL component library

Jedi WinAPI and security API

TMS Intraweb components

Woll2Woll Infopower and 1stClass components – database grid components and much more

Steema – TeeChart Pro – chart components for Delphi VCL, .NET and PHP

Qusoft – Delphi Quick reports components

DelphiSource – listing of 3rd party components

TIndex – language changes by version of Delphi.