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Section 2: What is Delphi?

Delphi is an object oriented, component based, visual, rapid development environment for event driven Windows applications, based on the Pascal language.

Unlike other popular competing Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools, Delphi compiles the code you write and produces really tight, natively executable code for the target platform. In fact the most recent versions of Delphi optimise the compiled code and the resulting executables are as efficient as those compiled with any other compiler currently on the market.
The term "visual" describes Delphi very well. All of the user interface development is conducted in a What You See Is What You Get environment (WYSIWYG), which means you can create polished, user friendly interfaces in a very short time, or prototype whole applications in a few hours.

Delphi is, in effect, the latest in a long and distinguished line of Pascal compilers (the previous versions of which went by the name "Turbo Pascal") from the company formerly known as Borland, now known as Inprise. In common with the Turbo Pascal compilers that preceded it, Delphi is not just a compiler, but a complete development environment. Some of the facilities that are included in the "Integrated Development Environment" (IDE) are listed below:

  • A syntax sensitive program file editor
  • A rapid optimising compiler
  • Built in debugging /tracing facilities
  • A visual interface developer
  • Syntax sensitive help files
  • Database creation and editing tools
  • Image/Icon/Cursor creation / editing tools
  • Version Control CASE tools

    What's more, the development environment itself is extensible, and there are a number of add ins available to perform functions such as memory leak detection and profiling.

    In short, Delphi includes just about everything you need to write applications that will run on an Intel platform under Windows, but if your target platform is a Silicon Graphics running IRIX, or a Sun Sparc running SOLARIS, or even a PC running LINUX, then you will need to look elsewhere for your development tools.

    This specialisation on one platform and one operating system, makes Delphi a very strong tool. The code it generates runs very rapidly, and is very stable, once your own bugs have been ironed out!



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