[Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes] There seems to be a perception among some people that Delphi is in the unique position of allowing developers to share and re-use code across the various platforms that it’s compiler can now (and will soon) target. But this is not the case. Oxygene has had this capability right from the start.
[Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes] In the comments on yesterdays initial post in a series following the experiences of porting an Objective-C sample to XE2, a number of people have asked why I didn’t use the TCFString record type in System.Mac.CFUtils to get the CFStringRef references that I required. The reason is embarrassingly simple.
[Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes] We have had almost a year of monkeying with fire now – enough time I think for people to have formed a view as to whether it is truly a viable multi-platform framework for the future, or just a convenient cross-platform solution with limited, genuine utility. At the same time, we have had OS X and some iOS support for the same period, with the prospect of more platforms being made available to us Delphi developers in the future. So, looking ahead, do we see FireMonkey as providing a solid foundation for a cross-platform future, or would we prefer to see tighter, closer “native” support for MULTIPLE-platforms (both currently supported and envisaged/promised) ? I know what I think: As much as I’d prefer to use ObjectPascal, I quickly decided that using Delphi + FireMonkey for OS X / iOS was like trying to ice-skate uphill. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the disconnect between me, my code and the environment I was writing for was going to be a source of nothing but constant pain and frustration, and so decided to learn Objective-C and Xcode instead. I anticipate this will be only worse when it comes to Android, so Read More…
[Estimated Reading Time: < 1 minute] Because System.IsConsole is hardwired to TRUE on MAC OS:
[Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes] So I have spent about a week now with XE2 and FireMonkey and thought I would share some of the experience so far. After an initial peek and poke around, the first order of business for me was to migrate some of my existing code to the new RTL. First on the list was my own testing framework which I have been using for a few years now. Something which was on the verge of being ready to expose to the harsh light of day but which I had decided to wait until I had an XE2 (and dare I hope… a cross platform) version before releasing. So this will be the first in a number of posts dealing with specific things that I have run across. First up: Win32/Win64 cross-platform.
[Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes] A commenter on my blog suggested that Cross Platform could be a big win for Delphi, making it “the first” to achieve this. This I think says a lot about the awareness and expectation of (some) of the people asking for cross platform, because far from being first Delphi would be way behind the curve in this area.
[Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes] Approximately 2 years ago I was present at a Delphi launch event here in Auckland. At that time the hot news was the release of Delphi 2007. But more significant than that (great) release was the recent publication after much SOX hoo-ing and haa-ing of a Delphi RoadMap.
