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Borland Releases Delphi 7

Posted by timothy on from the delphi-and-kylix-sound-like-minivan-names dept.

sebmol writes: "Borland has released version 7 of its superb development tool Delphi. Unusual for Borland, they have added quite a few extras to their release such as a complete (!) copy of Kylix 3, Borland's port of Delphi to Linux. The price is somewhat affordable, especially if you can take advantage of their upgrade offers. For the first time since Borland became Borland again (after the Inprise debacle), I can say that I am truly impressed by this company and their products."

11 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Does this have the Chess sample program... by Utopia · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...that was included in Borland C++ and Turbo Pascal 7 and some previous version of Delphi ?
    Anyone knows ?

  2. I miss the old Borland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Where you could purchase their entire C/C++ compiler suite + assembler + debugging tools for $149US ($169US?). The package came with several thousand pages of excellent documentation spread out over 5 or so books.

  3. Re:w00t! by arnex · · Score: 2

    Object Pascal r00ls!

    Yeah, you'd think so, wouldn't you? However, despite all the copies on my shelf of various versions of the Object Pascal Language Reference published by Borland, the official line is (now) that the language used in the product known as Delphi is and always has been officially called Delphi. Not Object Pascal.

    I get a feeling that some lawyer in Scott's Valley got a call from some lawyer in Cupertino last year regarding the trademark to "Object Pascal" or something.

  4. Not Released Yet. by gehrehmee · · Score: 2
    Keep your pants on, it's not out yet.
    Availability: Pre-Order Now! This product is currently scheduled to ship on or after 08/28/02
    --
    "You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
  5. Delphi.NET... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Another thing that others on /. seem to be missing is that D7 will also ship with a preview version of their Delphi for .NET compiler ( DCCIL - pronounced Diesel ). This compiler will produce native .NET IL code and you will be able to use just as you can C# or VB.NET.

    For who are interested in using Delphi to write .NET applications, 2 articles have been published on BDN ( http://bdn.borland.com/ ) outlining how the new Delphi.NET compiler works and also how to use Delphi with ASP.NET as native .NET applications/scripts.

    Simple games are already being written with DCCIL and there is talk that applications using DCCIL will be compatible enough to run under the new PocketPC .NET machines. But we will have to wait until it ships to be sure.

    1. Re:Delphi.NET... by Gaijin42 · · Score: 2

      Anything that compiles down to IL will work on any machine with a CLR. Just like anything that produces byte code will run in a JVM. Running on a pocketPC machine will likely have more to do with the libraries and functions you use, and how you design your GUI than with the language you wrote in.

      Thats the whole point of the CLR. C#, VB, Cobol, J# etc are all interchangable.

      Delphi is a great language, and great set of libraries. But Delphi.Net is dumb. you wont have the VCL, or all the libraries, so all you have is Pascal syntax basically. (Not that Pascal is bad, I think it gives the readability of Basic, with the power of C)

    2. Re:Delphi.NET... by sebmol · · Score: 2, Informative

      Delphi.NET will have the VCL and a lot of the other Borland libraries that have been introduced lately. You are not limited to using Window Forms and ADO.NET with Delphi.NET.

      --
      "Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
    3. Re:Delphi.NET... by Gaijin42 · · Score: 2

      If they don't it will be worthless, since interop runns REALLY slow compared to managed.

  6. Re:Nice, but by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

    Hmmm...I'm looking for a new language to play with.

    Would like pay-as-you-play a la C++ -- not massive overhead to run the thing if I'm not using features. Java is slow, verbose and has lame generic containers. C++ is nice but huge, complicated, and doesn't have native GC. C lacks GC, good generic containers, and has too weak typing. lisp lacks static typing. sml is a functional language (ick) and type inference sucks.

    I'm not touching C# with a ten foot pole on general principle.

    Right now, the things I'm thinking about looking at next are eiffel and objective C. I'd really like templating, which I know that you get with eiffel. Anyone have any likes/dislikes about these two?

    --
    May we never see th
  7. Re:Nice, but - troll by turgid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Delphi, the language, is actually very nice for people wanting to get a job done. The problem with Dephi is that it's non-portable. It only runs on and generates code for 32-bit x86 machines. You can't run it on anything else. This was not a problem if you only wanted to write Windows code. Now you can write Windows and Linux x86 code. You can't make SPARC, PowerPC, MIPS, ARM or any other code with it for that matter. You're still tied to x86, but now you have the choice of Linux or Windows.

    --
    Stick Men
  8. Extras not unusual for Borland by bevan.arps · · Score: 2, Informative

    Unusual for Borland, they have added quite a few extras to their release such as a complete (!) copy of Kylix 3, Borland's port of Delphi to Linux.

    Having extras included with your Borland purchase isn't strange at all - every time I've purchased a Delphi edition (1, 2 then 5) it came with a whole stack of CDs.

    Delphi 5 came with free copies of C++ Builder 3 and JBuilder 2; IIRC it also included a web site tool (can't remember which), a Companion Tools CD (some free stuff and some demos of 3rd party). Way back when Delphi 2 and 3 were released, each came with bundled Delphi 1 for 16bit development.