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  • Delphi XE 2: Meet FireMonkey

    Well the cat, or monkey is finally out of the bag and everybody knows what is to come really soon for Delphi XE2. FireMonkey is the latest a greatest framework which everybody is talking about. Here is a video by Andreano Lanusse that explains how you use FireMonkey in your new Delphi applications. He also goes on to show you how the new XE2 dev tool will target for OS X and iOS as well as Windows 32/64-bit.




    iOS support was included to create projects by exporting your existing projects into an Xcode project that you can load and compile for iPhone or iPad. Great things can be done with this next version of Delphi and everyone is excited!



    Andreano Lanusse Explains New Framework and Platforms in Delphi XE2


    News Source: Andreano Lanusse Blog
    Comments 24 Comments
    1. pstudio's Avatar
      pstudio -
      And I'll say he's done fine job with C# at Microsoft. I wonder how Delphi would have looked like if he had stayed at Borland?
    1. phibermon's Avatar
      phibermon -
      Quote Originally Posted by pstudio View Post
      And I'll say he's done fine job with C# at Microsoft. I wonder how Delphi would have looked like if he had stayed at Borland?
      I think it might of evolved into somthing like FPC+Lazarus

      Joking apart, I think the various designers involved in Delphi over the years have fine tuned the language to the point where it far surpassed C++ and only misses a few things of the new C++0x standard. FPC for the most part has most new Delphi OOP additions impemented and I have it on good authority that LLVM IR will soon be a target which of course will mean that FPC (and in turn Delphi) will soon have cutting edge compiler optimization too.

      (it does beg the question however, why embarcado are still working on their next-gen compiler. Why not just dump it and put the devs on FPC? loads of big corps. have full time devs working on Linux, Apache etc why should embarcado treat FPC any differently? esp. if they're already using it for XE2. I mean, their selling point has always been the DB componenets etc anyway)

      .NET has many awesome features that do add value to certain development paradigms. I think the whole garbage collection thing is a waste of time (a common debate splattered over the web) but stuff like LINQ for example? brilliant

      I really hope that XE2 brings more OOP devs. The videos do make it look like a very attractive option!
    1. WILL's Avatar
      WILL -
      Quote Originally Posted by pstudio View Post
      And I'll say he's done fine job with C# at Microsoft. I wonder how Delphi would have looked like if he had stayed at Borland?
      Like Delphi Prism, but with more Delphi-eske syntax maybe?

      Prism seems to be 'the right way' to do it with Object Pascal on .NET. I'm not a huge fan of many of these Run-Time/Managed based technologies like Java and .NET/Mono where you rely on 3rd party run-times for stability and speed of your applications. I am however a fan on native compiled code running on the device it was programmed for, why would you do it any other way unless you were trying to take a short-cut?

      As far as XE2's FPC dependance, I'm quite sure that Free Pascal is used for iOS only. I'd have to re-confirm it perhaps, but from what I can see it was used only for iOS and not Mac OS X. Can anyone reference a source to confirm or deny? The interview response I got back was a bit vague so it did leave more to be questioned still, but I don't think he was saying that OS X depends on FPC.

      As for Delphi's compiler, it is only one peice of the whole dev environment. Don't forget it took the Free Pascal/Lazarus teams a while to make a proper linker so that better optimization and compression could be performed outside of the GNU-based Linker for x86 could be added. Also don't forget the debugger, something that FPC/Lazarus still depends on for proper debugging.

      Delphi is basically a:

      • Compiler
      • Linker
      • Debugger
      • Run-Time Library
      • Domain Object Model Library
      • Visual Component Library (that it's 100% functional)
      • Support Libraries & Components for everything from DB to Networking to Graphs and Controls
      • all wrapped up into an a really professionally made IDE designed with productive UI in mind (this is the important part for many)


      They respect FPC enough to consider supporting it in Delphi to do what they realize they can't do yet. Kind of an idea that had been circling from Apple in that, they do what they do best and incorporate what others have done better to make a great dev tool. I like this approach personally. It's this process in making hardware and software that I switched to Apple after being such a long-time Windows user.


      Anyhow, just wanted to say a few things and rant myself. I've been a bit quiet about XE2 since I'm on the NDA, but thankfully we all were given permission to start talking now. I'm going to be much more verbal about some of the awesome things that I've been able to see being a part of the Pulsar Beta program. Thanks to all those that we ambitious and open-minded enough to give Embarcadero a shot at giving Delphi a second chance. I've seen some totally awesome things from this new company and I'm hoping to see more. I plan on sharing what I can as I bend these guys' ears towards what us countless Indies want in our Object Pascal tools.
    1. VilleK's Avatar
      VilleK -
      Good post Will. I have great use of .NET when I code business applications in C# but when I use Delphi I want native code, and I want it to bee good code generation with smart linking that only include code that I use. Fpc has been far behind Delphi compiler in those aspects so I definitely think there is room for more than one compiler implementation on the market. Competition is always good, even if one of the products is free open source.

      In the other thread I was under the impression that FPC was used for all platforms except Win32 but now I have seen various indications that XE2 will indeed have new compiler support for Win64 and OSX, and leave non-Intel platform (iOS) to Fpc until Embarcadero have their own support for arm-platform. That looks much more interesting in my opinion and I look forward to the finished product.