After delivering information about MSBuild integration, InstallAware support, and new Vista components, CodeGear continues to "informally" describe the new features of the coming version of Delphi with a detailed blog post by the developer behind Delphi's database connectivity technology.

In a very long and detailed post, Steve Shaughnessy describes version 4 of the dbExpress technology, which should unify the Win32 dbExpress and the .NET BPD architectures in a single library. But this is only one of the new futures coming along (and meant to simplify the reduce the development of drivers). Another notable change is that, differently from the previous versions, "the dbExpress framework is written in 100% Delphi".

The new architecture allows for "delegate drivers" that can pre-filter or post-filter any call to an actual driver, in a chain. Available filters will provide extended tracing and connection pooling. There is also support for extended commands (or metadata commands) and everything should come with enough source code to be considered an open architecture.

Sounds like this so-called Spacely will be an interesting update to Delphi, after all... Keep up the good work!