Category: News

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

• From Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, 1594

So what do you call the language we use in the Delphi native IDE?

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So far the voting is neck in neck between Delphi and Object Pascal.

In my opinion the history is Pascal evolved into Object Pascal, which evolved into Delphi.  It seems to me that Delphi is to Pascal in the same way that C++ is to C.  They both add objects and other language extensions as well as a standard library. Sure Object Pascal extends the Pascal language, but Delphi adds even more langauge extensions and also the standard libraries of the RTL and the VCL.

I know every C/C++ programmer I have known is very strict about referring to the language by the appropriate name, be it C or C++.  Are we being more specific by referring to it as Delphi, Object Pascal or Pascal?

I used to always called it Object Pascal, but I think Delphi is the way to go now.  How about you?  Let me know why in the comments.

That which we call Delphi, by any other name would be as productive!

In this episode I talk to RemObjects’ marc hoffman (Chief Architect) and Mike Orriss (General Project Manager) about their product offerings.  You can follow them in the RemObjects Blog, or marc and Mike are both on Twitter.  You may recognize marc as a fairly regular guest on the podcast, and Mike is actually the keeper of the RemObjects Wiki’s, so you may know him from there.

I was surprised to learn that most all of their products are for both .NET and Delphi native, with some also being available for the Mac (Objective-C).  So if you are looking for some cross platform solutions then they appear to be the guys to talk to.  In fact, their Hydra is specifically for combining Delphi native and .NET into a single solution.

At the end of the podcast marc wanted to come up with some sort of deal for our listeners.  I think the end result is pretty cool, and gives any listener a chance to win their choice of products.  All you need to do is download one of their trials and check it out.  Then write about your experiences in your blog or on your website and leave a comment here linking to it by the end of February.

Then one entry will be selected at random to receive a free copy of whatever they reviewed.  This is a great opportunity to try out their products and possibly get one for free.  You can choose from Data Abstract, the RemObjects SDK, AnyDAC and Hydra.

Your experiences should be honest.  A positive or negative review will not influence your chances of winning.

On a side note I just love all of RemObjects product icons and art work.  I should have asked them who does their art work.  Check out their product wallpapers.  My favorite is the Delphi Prism one that looks like the Pink Floyd album cover.

Update: RemObjects just published their Software ROadmap 2009 v1.

I recently discovered the fascinating site Refactor My Code where software developers can collaborate on the evolution of a piece of code. Well, thanks to the work of Marc-André Cournoyer it now has a section for Delphi code refactorings.

They are using Ruby’s Ultraviolet syntax highlighter, which has a Pascal syntax. Based on preliminary tests it appears to work correctly.  Let me know if you encounter any thing that doesn’t get highlighted correctly and we can work to correct it.

I’ll be posting code snippits and looking to help refactor yours!

I wanted to get Nick on another episode to answer some questions about 64-bit Delphi.  I always figure a little straight talk can clear up a lot of confusion.  Unfortunately that didn’t work out again.  Instead though, you can post your questions for Nick’s interview on Friday for the 47 Hats podcast.  Questions you leave here will not be passed on, so be sure you leave them on Facebook.  If you don’t have a Facebook account you can leave your question and a request for me to post it for you and I will see what I can do.