CodeGear's Delphi 2007 for Win32 (D2007) is the latest version of Delphi RAD studio based on the Delphi/Object Pascal language and for Windows development only. In other words, this Delphi, unlike previous “cross-platform” versions of Delphi, develops native Win32 applications only (no .NET) and only in the Delphi language (no C#, C++, etc.) If you're familiar with Borland Developer Studio 2006, this is analagous to the feature called “Delphi for Microsoft Win 32”.

That's important because the IDE is still .NET-based, even though it doesn't target .NET. You still have to make sure that you're up-to-date with .NET. The installation process goes through all the checks and downloads, of course.

Despite targeting native apps only, Delphi still has the rich set of options available since back in the Delphi 7 days: Console, control panel, Win32 GUI, COM objects, a variety of Internet targetting options and so on. But before we get into specifics, let's look at the big picture.

In the main, this is a relatively minor upgrade to BDS 2006, especially with regard to new features. Even so, it should be welcome to those who are on an older version of Delphi (7 or earlier) and even to those who have been using BDS 2006.

In my review of BDS 2006, I wrote of how it finally managed to pull me away from the stalwart Delphi 7, which it did. But I still occasionally found myself firing up D7 from time to time—particularly if BDS was being difficult in some fashion. For example, I might encounter project file corruption, a refusal of the BDS to shutdown sometimes, or shutting down with an access violation at other times. They were little annoyances, to be sure, but in a crunch one doesn't always have time or patience to deal with such things.

So, while D2007 looks pretty much the same as the Win32 facet of BDS 2006, the niggling little IDE bugs and unexplained behavior seem to have entirely vanished. Granted, these bugs were superficial in themselves, but they detracted from an experience longtime Delphi users expected to be pleasurable. With D2007, I haven't had the faintest urge to fire up D7. It starts about as fast (depending on installed components, of course), stops when I want it to—and only when I want it to—and I haven't yet encountered a single IDE exception.

And that's reflective of the whole feel of this new version. There aren't a lot new features; those that exist are relatively narrow in scope, but it feels all of a sudden like someone (or lots of someones) is taking Delphi seriously again. It's a curious thing to review: I like it a whole lot more than 2006, but the why's are primarily the sum of many small improvements.

What's Old Is New Again

I know I wasn't the only hold-out hanging on to Delphi 7, and I'm not the last to leave it behind. I'm sure that's a big part of the impetus for CodeGear's Nick Hodges' article on what's changed since Delphi 7. It's a lot, but it covers a good five years of development. By all means, if you haven't kept up with Delphi's evolution, check it out. Some of the advancements haven't made much of an impression on me, while others have proved very useful.

For example, I love the IDE guidelines introduced in 2006, the refactoring and the sync edit. I'm lukewarm on the block competion and code templates, since I often end up wrestling with them. And while I've become addicted to class completion and error-underlining, they don't always work as they should. (Code completion chokes on “array of array of [type]” under certain circumstances, and has since first introduced, for example.)

But these improvements are from 2006 and earlier. The 2007 additions to the IDE aren't exactly thrilling: the IDE now uses the MS Build and has been beefed up in some other ways;and a new file browser has been added. (But you still can't make the component list work like it did in D7.) The most substantial change (in my view) was to the help files, which I'll cover later.

There are little things, though, that tend to get overlooked (even in the What's New documentation), like the component bar's search feature improvement. In BDS 2006, you could type “tbu” (or just “bu”) and get any component that started with “tbu”, like “TButton”. In D2007, if you type “bu”, you get any component that has a “bu” in it anywhere, like “TSpeedButton”. Minor, but it makes the search infinitely more useful.

There are a few negatives on the minor side, too. For instance, Alt+Tabbing between Delphi and some other app seems to always cause the Desktop SpeedSetting to be selected. But these are relatively few.

Like the IDE improvements, the 2007 VCL improvements are pretty light in 2007. Themes are on by default. There are a few new Vista dialogs. It's Vista-compatible, which is one of those things that's critical if you need it, but makes you feel better knowing that your tool is keeping up with the times. There's a tray icon component. Oh, and TeeChart's back on the component palette, which I like. Two other nice additions are AJAX support and dbExpress improvements, discussed below.

The VCL has probably changed the least since D7, adding a few cool, if not critical items, which you can see in Nick's article above. This is not a bad thing, though. There's no shortage of components, and big changes in structure tend, of course, to break code.

Also in the “no changes is good changes” category is language. D2007 doesn't add any new language features, as far as I can tell. Although I have in the past, preferred Delphi to be more cutting edge, I see a lot of other languages bloating up and not respecting the complexity they're introducing with new features. (Sometimes I think most individual languages are headed toward C++ while language development itself seems to trend toward Smalltalk and Lisp.)

Since D7, we've gotten operator overloading, some refinement of the object model (with class variables and strict designators), method extensions to records (handy when you don't have garbage collection), and the very cool class helpers (which allow you to extend classes without changing their code). I know the CodeGear guys are excited about all kinds of language improvements (aspects being among the most interesting to me), but I'm happy to see them polish what's already there.

Odds and Ends

Because this release doesn't come with a huge laundry list of earth-shaking features, it could be easy to dismiss. Yet from the moment I started using it, the whole experience made me feel better about Delphi than I had in years.

As I've mentioned, there's the (predictable) support for Vista and AJAX: Indispensible if you need them, comforting if you don't. I'm not doing Vista and usually use other tools for AJAX, but the dbExpress rewrite hit home for me.

I do a lot of work writing custom database applications for people, generally trying to avoid inflicting the overhead of one of the full-blown DBMSes when not necessary. DbExpress is designed to facilitate that sort of development, and the whole framework is written in Delphi, making it possible to easily write your drivers.

In addition, some pretty clear and relatively thorough set of help pages gives an overview of how and why to develop with dbExpress, how to deploy dbExpress applications, and so on. Like Vista and Ajax, the dbExpress stuff isn't revolutionary, but it is just what I was looking for.

Which brings me to the help. I was thrilled when I brought up the first few help topics in D2007: The text was meaty and well linked. It was clear that considerable effort had been expended on improving one of the most deteriorated aspects of Delphi. (Some of the weird help-system behaviors of previous versions have gone away, too.)

A bit of the bloom has gone from the rose subsequently, unfortunately: Big chunks of things are still undocumented (showing only their Doc-O-Matic stubs) or don't show up in context help, and even though you're working in Delphi and Win32, you still get bunches of irrelevant links for .NET and C++. The help filters don't stick or even work, as far as I can tell.

If the worst thing that one could say about any help system is that you wouldn't want more of it, the worst thing I can say about D2007's help is that I want a whole lot more like the new stuff.

CodeGear

The most important advancement in D2007 is, frankly, CodeGear, the newly spun-off company from Borland. For me, recognizing a lot of the names on the CodeGear masthead gave me a sense of optimism that was largely justified in the wake of this release.

The company website, being devoted solely to developer's tools, is easier to navigate and gives the impression of fully embracing the concept of transparency. Another post from Hodges reveals a list of persistent bugs that are fixed in the new version. It's natural to have a sense of pride about one's product, but this can turn into a sort of jingoism and denial, to a company's detriment. CodeGear seems to hit just the right combination of pride-of-workmanship with the sort of honesty that keeps one grounded.

The other important impression I get from CodeGear is that they know the importance of their audience. As Borland turned their focus from the developer in the trenches, they alienated some long time fans, and a lot of energy seems to be devoted into winning those people back.

So, even though Borland hasn't sold CodeGear off yet, speculation that there would be no serious change in the development process does not seem to be borne out by the evidence. Besides the overall transparency and the splitting of the Win32 product, CodeGear has released a PHP tool and has a Ruby tool in the works. (If memory serves, the last time Borland branched out to a new language was the '90s.) CodeGear looks to be heading off rumors of irrelevancy at the pass.

The Bottom Line

In summary, and hopes for the future aside, if you're using BDS 2006 and cash is tight, you could reasonably skip this iteration or put it off for a while, unless you really need the Vista, AJAX or dbExpress goodies. I wouldn't, though, just because of the number of rough edges that have been smoothed out.

But if you're still clinging to Delphi 7, it's time to let go. Seriously.

For .NET, of course, you'll still need to have BDS 2006 around, and it's curious that there's no mention of a pending upgrade. But if it means more smoothing and polishing, I can wait. And if D2007 is any indication, the wait will be worth it.