The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

April 1995

Software Review....

Borland’s Delphi

by Michael Cummings

First, Delphi is, in my opinion, a cool tool. Its fun to

use and very powerful.

Delphi is an unqualified success. The Delphi forum

on CompuServe is so busy that messages scroll off

in a day or two. Delphi books are also a hot item in

book stores across the country. What is all the

excitement about?

Delphi is a general-purpose Windows tool with

database features. It is in exactly the same market

niche as Visual Basic, and it has many of the advan-

tages of C++.

Delphi’s language is Object Pascal. Delphi uses the

same Object.Method and Object.Property syntax that

Visual Basic, Access, Visual FoxPro use. For ex-

ample:

IconViewForm. Close;

MyButton.Caption := 'Hello World’;

Its a clean syntax, and I would be happy to see it in

all the tools I use.

The development environment is a delight. It is as

intuitive and easy as Visual Basic. The toolbars and

property sheets are easy to figure out and efficient to

use. Just like VB, you can create a wide variety of

Windows programs. Just like VB, you can go from

design to run in a few seconds.

Delphi uses an object/component architecture that

allows you to plug in various components, just like

VB. Delphi ships with a Grid, a Tab control, and lots

of other useful VCLs. Unlike Visual Basic Custom

Controls, where components must be written in C++,

Delphi Visual Component Library (VCL) components

are written in Delphi, so you can either write them

yourself or purchase them.

Unlike VB, Delphi is compiled, not interpreted. In

certain operations, compiled code can give a 10 t

20 fold speed advantage. The compiled code

advantage is strongest in heavy looping and very

custom Windows interface tricks. For bread and

butter database apps, the database engine is more

critical to speed.

One of Delphi’s biggest strengths is the 350,000 line

per minute Pascal Compiler. It produces true ma-

chine compiled code, like C++, and it does it fast.

Delphi has done a great job of encasing a high

performance compiled language in a rapid, intuitive

and easy to learn development environment.

Delphi really delivers the ease of use and manage-

able learning curve of VB, without the slow speed

and limited project size of VB. Delphi delivers most

of the power of C++ without the pain of slow com-

piles and mistake-prone syntax. I would use Delphi

over VB or C++ for just about anything.

Ok, but how does Delphi compare to Visual FoxPro?

Comparing Delphi to Visual FoxPro is like comparing

a Speedboat to a Porsche. They have entirely

different strengths. Delphi is a general-purpose tool

that can be used to create any kind of Windows

program, including spreadsheets, Word Processors,

etc. Visual FoxPro is totally comitted to database

applications

It appears that Delphi’s VCL component structure

does not encourage subclassing to the extent that

the Visual FoxPro environment does. Delphi will

not, for instance, allow you to subclass an entire

form and all the controls on it. In other words, for

regular database type work, Visual FoxPro is going

to be faster to develop in.

Besides its own native VCL components, Delphi also

supports many VBX’s. Support for Ole Custom

Controls (OCX), such as those used by Visual

FoxPro, is supposed to be in the works. There is

such a strong interest in Delphi that it looks like

there will be more VCL components in the near

future than OCX components.

The Report Smith report writer included with Delphi

is a separate, stand alone application, that uses its

own version of Basic, and its own (slower) database

engine.

Delphi includes 2 database engines. Borland

Database Engine (BDE) is the same file-server

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