So it has been a while since I last updated on my progress with the migration from Delphi 6 to Delphi 2009. There's a reason. I'm still on Delphi 6 and I've got nowhere fast with ODBCExpress!
To be fair to its developer, Pieter Myburgh, it isn't his project anymore and he has been very good in keeping in touch with me and letting me know how the open source status is coming along. Very slowly, it would seem. He created a project on SourceForge and that is the only activity there has been. I think legal red tape is giving him a bit of a headache.
I know I'm not the only one really hoping we can get ODBCExpress moved up to Unicode-enabled Delphi 2009. But I'm starting to come under a bit of pressure now to look at alternatives. It is understandable - we paid a lot of money of the new version (as it was then) of Delphi, under my recommendation, only to find we can't use it.
I've looked at changing to dbGo (ADO) or dbExpress, and have participated in some interesting discussions on Stack Overflow about the merits of both. But ultimately, the thought of having to change to the core database connectivity components of 10 years worth of software (including nearly 50 plug-ins) makes me shudder. Not least because we use a great deal of the intricate little details of ODBC and ODBCExpress, which we'd have to find alternatives for - if, indeed, an alternative is available.
On the upside, we would have had to buy Delphi 2009 or 2010 this year anyway, because of Embarcadero's decision to only allow upgrade prices for users of Delphi 2006 and later from 2010.
And also I have got all the other component sets that we use installed in Delphi 2009, and the main application compiles. So small steps are being made.
