New Delphi, RAD Studio XE announced

Embarcadero has announced RAD Studio XE and will be showing a number of “sneak peaks” during August prior to release in “early September”. You can see the previews and further information here.

The suite includes Delphi XE, C++Builder XE, Delphi Prism XE (Delphi for Visual Studio and .NET) and RadPHP XE.

The first preview focuses on integrated Subversion support, a nice feature but hardly a game changer – most IDEs have had this for years, though this looks comprehensive with differencing, file history and so on within the IDE.

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There’s also a look at RadPHP, which is a new version of Delphi for PHP. It is reminiscent of ASP.NET Web Forms, in that it gives a drag-and-drop visual designer and lets you quickly hook up code to event handlers such as a button click. There’s also a component model and the ability to set breakpoints for debugging. We even get the old listbox and editbox demo which I recall from Delphi 1 days.

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Embarcadero’s Mike Rozlog blogs about the new product here.

I am a big fan of Delphi and C++ Builder, but my initial reaction is that developers are going to say, where is cross-platform for Mac and Linux that was talked about last year, where is 64-bit Delphi? None of this looks remotely cutting-edge.

The published Roadmap is short on dates, but I’m guessing some of this may come next year.

29 thoughts on “New Delphi, RAD Studio XE announced”

  1. I like Delphi and C++ builder too… It was in Delphi that I wrote my first real Windows app (an IMAP4 client which never saw the light of day).

    But I moved away from Windows a few years ago now, so I don’t really need it!

  2. Where is cross-platform for Mac and Linux that was talked about last year, where is 64-bit Delphi?

  3. Another version of Delphi to skip, and another year to wait for real changes…
    Since Delphi 3, very little happend, unfortunatly.

  4. Thanks very much for the screenshots.

    Embi seem to think everyone has a fast internet connection and can just watch all those videos.

  5. If Delphi XE does not contain a 64-bit compiler (which I don’t expect), or cross compilation support for OS X and/or Linux, then I will be skipping this release.

    Those are the only 2 things I care about. I already own Delphi 2010, which is the *best* version of Delphi I have ever used…(although I’ve only used BDS2006, and Delphi 2007).

    It’s really getting to the point where I will *need* 64-bit support within the next 18 months. If I don’t have it by then, well, I suppose I’ll try to use Lazarus with the FPC compiler.

    Or (shudder), write C# again.

  6. While Not CheckFor64BitSupport(Delphi.CurrentRelease) Do Sleep_Til_Next_Release;

    For real .. i cant even access mapi on a 64bit system .. and i already having trouble with my customers so gimme 64bit support or bust. 😉

  7. I need 64-bit today, because my 32-bit DLLs won’t load into 64-bit applications.

    I want cross-platform, but it isn’t as important as 64-bit. If I want to run Windows binaries on Linux, then I can use WINE (for free.)

    I hope Embarcadero uses LLVM or similar project to make sure the new compiler has stable support for 64-bit and cross platform can follow.

    I hope I’m not forced to switch to QT using C/C++.

  8. I’m still using Delphi 6. And I don’t see any reason to increase to a higher version until 64-bit is here.
    Why the hell work on SVN integration and other meaningless features when 90% of (still existing) Delphi users request 64-bit?
    Where do the Product Managers spend their days at? Hearing customers, or imagining all sorts of things to themselves?

  9. repeat
    inc(delphi_version);
    add dumb things that no body wants
    // new feature is planning..
    until sale(delphi);

  10. Assert(z.comment)

    Is Embarcadero waiting for 128 bit machines to roll-out it’s 64 bit version…. ?

  11. Indeed: Where is cross-platform for Mac and Linux that was talked about last year, where is 64-bit Delphi? None of this looks remotely cutting-edge.

  12. I think M$ has been playing a behind the scene role to kill Delphi for many years. My guess is that key members at “Embarcadero” are men from M$.

  13. Pleased to see increased pressure for 64 bit. Used the feedback invitation from CodeRage II (2007) to point out that this would trigger my next upgrade along with a few other wants like support for inline assembler in C++ builder to the same standard as Delphi and a fast implicit reference counting option for class-types. Apart from a slavish adherence to C# like records (no assignment operator overloading and nothing to do with native code) nearly got fast counting maybe with a proposal for C++ style records in Delphi but what did we get instead? Closures! Still watching this space but maybe not for much longer.

  14. Yep as above, still use D7 as nothing since has added anything, well apart from a slow and bloated IDE! 64 bit support is a must now so cant see what the issue is.

  15. I’m very, very disappointed! Still no outlook for 64-bit 🙁
    We need it. Like Andrew G. pointed out, we can’t even communicate with mapi 64-bit …

  16. I used every version of C++Builder since V3 in 1998, but currently I’m still using C++Builder 6, circa 2002. 2010 is the best version, but still some things in 2010 are a giant step down from V6 – the help system for example, is slow and incomplete. At some point a 8 year old development environment is not going to cut it, but I’m hanging out that Embarcadero is eventually going to produce something I don’t just test and then throw on the pile. My customers are asking for cross platform but I’m sure I’m going to find that I have to re-write the applications to use whatever library is eventually used. 64 bit was originally announced for ‘Winter 2008’. I wonder if Embarcadero hired programmers from the Duke Nukem Forever team?

  17. Another sad day for me.
    Mike R. brings nothing new on the table – same old friendly chats with the color-wheel-t-shird-big-beard-I.

    Nick H. at least do cares (I guess not now) about the Delphi UserVoice page where clearly the 64-bit compiler and Mac support had 10 times more votes than any other feature.

    The only reason I still use Delphi and haven’t switched to QT is DevExpress.
    I don’t care about the language features like Generics or Lambda expressions, LINQ, operator overloading, structures with methods even for foreach.
    I don’t care about the VCL. VCL simple sucks if you compare it to DevExpress. I only use TForm, TActionList and TPanel from the VCL.
    I don’t care about crappy Indy, Rave Reports, Quick Reports, T-Charts. There are much more robust and powerful equivalents on the market and if there are no such you can always use Windows API + JWA
    I don’t care about RTL enhancements like IOUitls. Long-long ago I created an RTL of my own entirely OOP based which mimiks the .NET classes TFile, TPath, TWebRequest, TString, etc.
    I don’t care at all about SVN integration. I use Tortoise and Dropbox.
    I don’t care about Final Builder. I can write .bat files. Who needs to buy a tools for calling command line executables from GUI.
    I don’t care about AQTime. I query the performance counter – I believe you know which API i mean.
    I don’t care about FastMM. I can install it myself.
    I don’t care about TRegEx. I can use PRCE.
    I don’t care (to a state of I hate) Model support. I don’t care about UML, Sequence diagrams, Metrics.
    I don’t care about integrated help. I even don’t install it. Google is better help.

    What I care is:
    I miss running Delphi under Mac
    I miss compiling with Delphi + Cocoa native Mac apps
    I miss headers for calling QT libraries. And do not give me the CLX crap. I need headers, not wrappers.
    I do care about sloooooooooow code completion on a 2 core duo 3 GHz, 4 GB RAM machine.
    I do care about typing faster than the source code editor displays the written characters. Which is ridiculous since I type with 6 fingers.
    I do care about Delphi price which is funny compared to VS Express and QT
    I do care about missing long term plans, vagues promises and firing people without explaining why – especially such on the lead R&D position

    and please tell the beard guy to buy a new T-Shirt.

  18. Looks like a bug/performance fix upgrade. Should be half the normal upgrade price for 2009/2010 users!

  19. Just looking at the pricing and given the lack of major new functionality I cant see the value. SVN support? big deal I can use tortoise and do that now. Using D7 pro + ado I can connect to mssql but now I need enterprise to connect to a remote mssql/mysql box? And to make matters worse since 7 is the last version I bought (as everything since has been pointless) I don’t qualify for upgrade pricing. OK so I dont *need* studio but wouldnt mind the php xe and prism stuff but for a lone developer like me, that’ll be 2 grand please squire! I could even justify £1K but no way £2K.

  20. Hi guys,
    I thought I’m the only one who thinks that all new features since Delphi 7 is almost useless. At least no so needed as support for 64bit. It seems I was wrong.

    For those of us who need support of 64bit right now I can recommend semi-migration to FreePascalLazarus like we did. We have separated out core code that needs to be native 6432 bits (driver front-ends, code that calls SetupApi and other hardware related things) into the service application and made this service to be built under both Delphi 7 and FreePascal (it’s much more easier to convert non-GUI code to FreePascal than to convert the whole application). So now we have 32 bit GUI VCL app + 32 or 64 bit service which communicate through pipes. 32 bit service is built with Delphi compiler and 64 bit service is built with FreePascal compiler. This decision works on platforms from win 2000 to win 7.

    Our new projects we do in Lazarus and recommend the same for everyone (of course for those who loves Pascal. If you and your team feel yourself comfortable with C++JavaC#, there are tonnes of other much better alternatives).

    P.S.
    Delphi was my favorite languageIDE since my first steps in programing ten years ago, but now… it’s difficult to say that for me, but it’s just dying.

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