An article on SDTimes and a YouTube video shed some light on the next version of Delphi Prism for Visual Studio 2010.
An article on SDTimes ("Delphi IDE retooled for Visual Studio 2010") and a YouTube video (see below) shed some light on the next version of Delphi Prism for Visual Studio 2010.
In the article we learn that Delphi Prism 2011 for Visual Studio 2010 is set for release on May 15, 2010 (am I the only one who finds this product numbering strategy a nonsense?). The company "promises cleaner connectivity to InterBase and Blackfish SQL databases, as well as the ability to create DataSnap clients in .NET that connect to Delphi DataSnap servers for multi-tier applications. New features include code obfuscation, parallel extensions and the ability to convert C# code into the Prism language."
You'll find an actual demo of some of this features, given by David I, in the following YouTube video, which is part of "VSIP Partners CAN DO! | Embarcadero Technologies Delphi Prism":
Looks quite nice. What's negative is that it seems Silverlight 4, won't be supported immediately, but only later in the release cycle (which is a quarterly cycle for Prism, as most RemObjects tools).
Marco,
If all goes well, Silverlight 3 and 4 will hopefully
be supported. They will just need to be downloaded
from Microsoft to get the integration.
Mike
Comment by Mike Rozlog on April 23, 20:09
Delphi Prism 2011 Video and Article
The title (and body) of the article seems missleading
to me. When I read it it looks like Delphi IDE (our
beloved Delphi Rad Studio) had moved to VS.
Until now I feel that (Delphi) Prism is doing more
hurt than good to Delphi. The tool could be excelent
but the contribution to Delphi seems negative to me.
Comment by Daniel Luyo on April 23, 21:07
Delphi Prism 2011 Video and Article
is this good news or bad? soon delphi developer maybe
will leave delphi tool environment and move to use
visual studio product.
Comment by Herman on April 24, 07:25
Delphi Prism 2011 Video and Article
@Daniel Luyo:
Chrome was the alternative since version 1 for .net.
afik it is really the only compiler that was built
form the beginning considering simply use .net and
integrate into Visual Studio in mind.
@Herman: We will see;-). In the end we all have
customers and if lucky we can decide the language ...
I think it is better to have this opportunity - think
of ASP.net for example. It is a very fundamental
decision to go with Microsoft at level that goes
beyond supporting the operating system Windows.
Comment by Michael on April 24, 12:17
Delphi Prism 2011 Video and Article
@Herman: I disagree. It gives those of us who prefer Object Pascal but
regularly use Visual Studio and the .NET environment more options.
Until Embarcadero licensed Oxygene and created Prism virtually everyone
that migrated development completely to .NET and Visual Studio was a
guaranteed lost customer. They went to C# almost certainly. Now they
have the potential to keep some of those people as customers even if
they no longer actively do native Delphi development. The way I see it
that keeps those customers in the native Delphi ecosystem. If they're
still using Prism there's a much, much higher opportunity to get them
back to using native Delphi at some point in the future. So the success
of Prism can only help the Delphi IMHO.
Embarcadero should dedicate less time and effort to
Delphi Prism simply because Delphi owes its success to
the fact that it's one of the best tools on the market
for the development of NATIVE applications.
.NET belongs to Microsoft and any attempt to compete
with them in that field is bound to fail.
Why Embarcadero is not creating it own environment for
.NET development?
I am a Delphi programmer from many years but with Prism
is better to move to C# on VS as it is really
frustrating to program in Prism.
Maybe they should change directions as probably they
will lose people using RAD and for sure market share.
I think Delphi was better when with Borland.
Prism uses VS Shell only because all designers like
Silverlight, ASP.NET, Compact Framework are impossible
to get replicated in another IDE. If you want to go .NET
using visual designers, there´s simply no alternative.
Comment by Gustavo on May 3, 23:08
Delphi Prism 2011 Video and Article
Our company, a very large software developer, having a
history of diverse development environments, is
gradually standardising on C#, .NET and Visual Studio.
One of our most significant commercial products was
originally written in Borland Pascal for DOS and then
migrated to Delphi when Windows came along. The number
of lines of code is counted in millions, some parts of
which are over 20 years old. Despite this, this
enterprise product continues to win awards.
With Delphi 2009, Codegear/Embarcadero killed any
chance of us upgrading to the latest versions of Win32
Delphi by making the switch to Unicode mandatory. In
my opinion there should have been a compiler option to
determine whether the fundamental string was Ansi or
Unicode. It is simply not practical nor cost-effective
to try to make our code Unicode-VCL and Unicode-
compiler compliant. It was looking increasingly likely
that new modules would be developed in C# and that
Delphi development would gradually die over time.
Then came Delphi Prism. In my opinion Oxygene is a far
more elegant and powerful language than C#. And with
the RemObjects Hydra plugin mechanism allowing us to
create a hybrid product of Win32 and .Net modules,
suddenly the resignation of submitting to C# doesn't
look that compelling. We can leverage our existing
Delphi skills, make use of the extra language
facilities provided by Oxygene and embrace .NET whilst
continuing to develop in Delphi 6 (! there having been
no good reason to upgrade since that version) and make
use of C# assemblies developed in other parts of our
business. Put simply, Delphi Prism has saved Delphi
development at our company from am absolutely certain
demise.
I don't agree that Delphi was better under Borland. In
my opinion Borland, Codegear and Embarcadero have
learned nothing from Microsoft in how to market and
advertise their products. Enforced Unicode
notwithstanding, Win32 Delphi is by far the best
development tool for Win32 applications - but you
wouldn't know it from the computing press. Delphi
Prism is a powerful rival to C# - but I doubt that it
will ever achieve C#-killer status - Microsoft always
target the decision-makers (i.e. IT Managers),
Delphi's owners always try and wow the developers. No
contest. Microsoft development tools will always hold
sway while this continues.
Comment by Barry on May 19, 16:10
Delphi Prism 2011 Video and Article
....and the gradual migration/defection of long-time
Delphi sites to Visual Studio and C# will continue.
