I've just watched Nick Hodges go through some of the VCL enhancements for Delphi 2009, and two things struck me.
Firstly, I can't understand why the PasswordChar feature on TEdit was being demonstrated; I was running Delphi 6 side-by-side with the video, and was changing this property with the same results. So why is this being advertised as a VCL enhancement when, if I recall correctly, it's been there since Delphi 1.
The other thing is how many of these new controls are similar to the Raize Controls, especially the TButton with images from an imagelist (TRzBitBtn), the TButtonEdit with 2 buttons in the edit control (TRzButtonEdit) and the group bar (TRzGroupBar).
That said, it's nice to have these as standard components, and if I do move to Delphi 2009 then I'd have to think twice about renewing my Raize Components.
7 comments:
Actually, I consider "a shame" CodeGear advertise this simple things as "enhancements" of D2009. Most of that could be already be found for free in Torry. If they were planning to add components already available for free, at last they could choose more interesting ones, and introduce many more than just those few.
I agree. I'm using DevExpress and haven't seen anything that isn't already in their controls for a long time. For now, the only thing that I think is worth upgrading is the Unicode support.
Well for me on Delphi 6, my head will explode with the new features that I've missed by not upgrading so far!
glad to know I am not the only one still on Delphi 6 :)
If new components were the only "enhancements" in Delphi 2009 (Tiburon), then I can understand the disappointment.
But the Unicode revamp is a huge undertaking (so huge that I'm worried about the bugs that it might introduce).
Also, they added Generics and Anonymous Methods. Think of Generics as C++ templates that allows metaprogramming. This is HUGE, unless you have no experience with C++ templates to understand the awesome possibilities. Even C++ programmers who use templates daily often don't grok the possibilities.
There's also a revamped project settings dialog that will boost my productivity. For example, having a "base" setting for each project that "release" and "debug" shares. I just wish they added a combobox in the main toolbar that displays which configuration is selected (debug vs release).
But if anything, I'm a bit worried they are adding too many features to Delphi 2009, especially given the impact of Unicode support in everything from VCL, RTL, and compiler.
My decision whether to stay with Delphi or move on will be based on how bug-free and reliable Delphi 2009 is this year.
I use Delphi because of productivity. And IDE/compiler bugs are the enemy of productivity.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all disappointed in what is coming up, Unicode clearly has been on many people's "need to have" list for a while now, and people seem to be excited about anonymous methods and other language enhancements.
We shouldn't complain about any of these given that CodeGear is now focusing on Win32 because of what we, the Delphi community, asked them to do.
I had the same confusion over the password character issue. The problem is that it is not being communicated well by CodeGear.
Windows edit box control now has the ability to use a bullet rather than an asterisk (*). So now, when you specify an asterisk as the password character, Delphi's TEdit will use the newer Windows capability for the bullet, rather than an asterisk. If the app runs on an earlier version of Windows, the asterisk is still used.
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