| Product: |
Borland Delphi v4 |
| Date: |
08.05.01 (158 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Very cheap, Powerful, RAD compatible
Disadvantages: Can't distribute applications, No Help file compiler
I have just finsihed writing a fairly major program, as part of my third year Computer Science degree course. It consisted of a total of 6000 lines of code, which for a program written by one individual is a fair amount.
I undertook this development in the Delphi 4 programming environment. The choice of this was for two reasons. The first, and most important, was the applicability of the language to the program that I was writing. Secondly, it's free! OK, technically it is not free. Delphi 4 is now available as a 'Trial' version, which I aquired on the cover of a PC Pro magazine, back in Novemeber last year (Nov2000). The license does have several restrictions on it, such as the applications being produced must only be used personally, and not distributed comercially. Fair enough, after all it is free. Delphi 5 (and any new versions that come out after this is written) have none of these restriction, but have to be bought at a fairly substantial price.
As I just mentioned, Delphi 4 was ideal for my application. I was assigned to write an nformation visualisation program, and as such needed a programming language that was very sutiable for graphics applications. Which Delphi is. It is a powerful language, being what is known as a RAD (Rapid Application Development) package, allowing the programmer to create a prototype (really just a user interface prototype) quickly and easily. Not only does it allow you to write a basic Pascal console application (though in practice nobody really does outside of the academic world), but it allows you to create all singing, all dancing graphical user interface programs.
The programs that you can develop in Delphi have the potential of looking just like any other MS Windows program. On the other hand, I personally have seen many program written using Delphi that look like nothing you have ever seen before.
I do not lay claim to knowing everything there is to know about this development
package. Indeed, I do not believe that I have used one quarter of the facilities that Delphi provides. Of course, you have access to all the usual features that you would expect to find on a GUI (Graphical User Interface) application, such as radio buttons, progress bars, timers, menu systems, status bars, etc. The list goes on and on. Additionally, Delphi provides you with access to all other kinds of Windows tools, such as ActiveX, SQL database linkups, DDE, and many others.
You also have the ability to call up standard dialogue boxes, such as Open, Save and Print dialogues, Error dialogues, Font dialogues, and more. You can also link your applications to many other program, such as Microsoft Office packages.
Delphi has limitless applicability. There is almost nothing that you can't do with the language. Or is there? Well, in fact there are a lot of things that you cannot do. The language is simply not as powerful as tradtional console application development packages, such as C. Obviously, you expect this as a lot of processing power must be dedicated to powering the GUI. Having said that, I have had no problems with poor application performance.
Unfortunately, in the version I own (there are several versions, such as 'Standard', 'Professonal', etc.) there is not facility to create installation programs. Obviously, there wouldn't be in my version as, as I have already mentioned, you are not supposed to distribute any applications that you develop. Also, there is not facility to create Help files, though if you create them elsewhere, you can link them directly into your programs.
In my opinion, Delphi 4 is the ideal program development tool for the home user or academic who wants a cheap alternative to the more expensive packages. It is feature-rich, and while does not provide everything you could ever hope for, most people will be quite content.
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