Last week I made a post criticizing the approach used to demonstrate CF development in a recent Borland video. I probably took a few too many things for granted, without expressing them, which got me some (possibly deserved) negative responses on the blog and by private email. So let me clear up a few things. First, I did change the blog entry by removing some of the quoted material from past blog entries. By quoting some very critical posts I ended up being too harsh, I guess. This was not my intention.

So, what did I take for granted? A few things:

  • Anyway you look at it, Delphi 2006 is not a complete tool for CF development, due to the lack of a proper integrated designer and a native debugger. But it is good enough to get your job done, particularly if you use some of the community plug-in tools. Granted, not having a debugger is a limitation.
  • If you use the WinForms visual designer (which is generally a good idea) Chee Wee wizard and Joroen class helpers... help a lot.
  • To help you activate the wizard at the right time and (even more important for me) manage the deployment, CFBuild is very handy.
  • I did say, but I will repeat myself here, that the Product Manager and Developers Relations at DevCo are both doing a great job with videos and other tools to document and promote Delphi.

In the end, sorry for the tone of the post (if you felt offended in some way). With the clarifications above, I do not think the content was incorrect, though.