New Delphi features since Delphi 7

[savage]

CodeGear has posted a list of features that have been added to the latest version of Delphi, compared to what was there back in version 7.0.

Language features : http://dn.codegear.com/article/34324

IDE features : http://dn.codegear.com/article/34323

VCL features : http://dn.codegear.com/article/34325

[dmantione]

It is nice to see Borland has restarted development on its compiler. Sadly, many new features are .NET-isms.

[marmin]

Class type
Should be in any pascal compiler

[WILL]

This is interesting indeed.

I am more interested in the language specific enhancements out of all of this. At least back when I started coding the whole focus was on language and coding practices (in code) not so much all the pretty menus and buttons and code manipulating algorithms.

I've heard it said recently that Object Pascal hasn't evolved much in the last while. It could be true to say that, but at the same time, which Object Pascal are we talking about?

I'd love to see CodeGear take the steps to getting a published standard for the 'Object Pascal' language that Delphi for Win32 and future Delphi suite compilers would conform to. It would make it a more tangible language for other major software tool developers to make use of.

This includes the new features that they have listed at the link provided there. They seem pretty decent additions to the language that we know now.

[dmantione]

Well, we've repeatedly tried to get usefull contacts with Borland about this in the past. Without any succes, on the contrary, examples:

* FPC had procedure overloading since version 0.5. When Borland released Delphi 5, they had managed to add it in an incompatible way to Delphi.
* FPC implemented operator overloading in version 0.99, intentionally compatible with GNU-Pascal's syntax. With Delphi .NET, Borland implemented operator overloading in an incompatible way.
* To be able to call C functions like printf, we used the well known the "array of const" syntax. For Kylix, Borland had to invent a "varargs" procdir.

I'm going to post a reaction to Nick's blog, Borland got a bit more open in recent years, lets see if there will be a reaction.

[WILL]

An important thing to note Daniel, is that CodeGear is not the same old Borland. Its literally a NEW company under new management.

I'd suggest taking a fresh page to them as any association with them and former Borland would not be very well received. I'm sure that not of of the current CodeGear team have jars full of warm fuzzes about Borland/Inprise memoirs sitting on their windowsills at home.

And I too agree that what I've seen of these guys is far FAR better then the old Borland house of yesteryear.

[WILL]

I like the new box design too.

[chronozphere]

Huh... Records with methods :shock: Aren't that just classes??

I like the operator-overloading and the for..in..do, but i consider the rest of the language changes less usefull, since AFAIK it doesn't enable us to do astonishing new things.
That said, i think the pascal language has all the features, an
average programmer like me needs.
but ehh... Class vars, consts etc can be very usefull for adding structure to your code though.

[marmin]

Is it me or have they changed logo in the weekend? The box looks nice.. stylish

[Robert Kosek]

Records with methods are like super-overloads. So I use it in my color unit to blend between colors with just one function call and return my special record. It's not technically a class though, so it is more compact in memory AFAIK.

Pretty handy actually, if you ask me.