Delphi Readers Choice Awards

Published on by Nick Bradbury

Although I’ve flirted with other languages, all of my shareware applications (HomeSite, TopStyle, FeedDemon) were coded using Borland Delphi. One of the great things about Delphi is that there are so many excellent third-party components and tools available, many of which were just honored in Delphi Informant Magazine’s 2004 Readers Choice Awards. Since I get a number of emails asking which tools I use, I figured I’d highlight some of the winners that I rely on.

TopStyle and FeedDemon both use the excellent ExpressBars and ExpressQuantumGrid component suites from Developer Express. Developer Express is one of few companies whose products I would buy without even trying them out – they’re that good.

I use FinalBuilder to automate the creation of each TopStyle and FeedDemon build, and I wouldn’t live without it. Likewise, I wouldn’t live without AQTime, which I rely on for locating performance bottlenecks in my code.

Notably absent from the awards is the superb InnoSetup installer. Even though InnoSetup is free, I gladly donated to the developer since his work has saved me a lot of headaches.

10 thoughts on “Delphi Readers Choice Awards”

  1. Love to hear your feelings about the future of Delphi. I love and use Delphi all the time (and Homesite), but cannot help thinking that Delphi’s popularity ratings are going down and down. Although it seems to be very popular in Eastern Europe, I don’t see too many people any more with Delphi skills. Everyone seems to be concentrating on Java and dotNET. Also, with Delphi going dotNET with Delphi 8, will a new Win32 version (supposedly Delphi 9) ever become as popular as say what Delphi 5 was? For me there is no better tool for Win32 development (and some custom CFX-tags for ColdFusion) than Delphi for Win32. But are those days numbered? Even if Borland DO bring out a new Win32 version in Delphi 9, somehow I dont think all the component makers will follow suit. If not enough people buy D9, then there is no motivation to make new components available.
    Thanks. Steve

  2. Hi Steve,
    I used to worry about the future of Delphi, but I’ve heard similar concerns about Delphi’s lifespan ever since v1.0, and they’ve proven to be unfounded. And even if Delphi dies a sudden death, I can still use it for a couple of years before I’d need to switch tools. So, I don’t really worry about it :)

  3. While I only have limited experience with Delphi, what with being force-fed Java is a language, I agree that it is a good development environment. It’s quite easy to use and to learn, and it produces programs which don’t take an age to start up or require bulky runtimes, which is a bonus.
    Inno Setup is indeed a superb program and it’s been really interesting watching it grow over the years. I first came across it when 1.2.x was the latest release – now it’s up to 5 and offers more features than many commercial applications. And yet the setups it produces are smaller than ever thanks to every improving compression.
    That said, NSIS is very good for those programs that don’t require particularly advanced setup routines as it has a smaller overhead.

  4. Delphi is the best Win32 dev tool – bar none. As long as you’re happy with the Win32 platform, stick with Delphi. It’s still very popular in many countries, not just Eastern Europe – anyone who gets to choose their own language and dev tool and has to make sure to get the most productivity and efficiency from his code, usually picks Delphi – that is, many independant contractors and smaller shops that don’t care about corporate IT policies, but just need to get the job done.
    Sadly, in the .NET arena, Delphi has yet to really live up to its Win32 promise. But mind you – most of the things being hailed as so great about .NET and C# really are old news for Delphite – we’ve enjoyed those treats ever since Delphi 1 in 1995 !! And now, *finally*, the rest of the programming world, coming from VB or C++, also being to realize that potential and reap the benefits of a great framework. Only goes to prove how good and advanced Delphi is!

  5. Thanks for linking to those awards. It pointed it me to some things that I hadn’t been aware of before.
    Nick, I noticed that they mentioned FastScript which seems to be able to add scripting support to your Delphi applications. I’m sure you know that I am suggesting scripting support for TopStyle. :)
    Here’s the link: http://www.fast-report.com/en/fastscript.php

  6. Thanks for linking to those awards. It pointed it me to some things that I hadn’t been aware of before.
    Nick, I noticed that they mentioned FastScript which seems to be able to add scripting support to your Delphi applications. I’m sure you know that I am suggesting scripting support for TopStyle. :)
    Here’s the link: http://www.fast-report.com/en/fastscript.php

  8. what do you use for the editor component? HS used to use David Brock’s TSyntaxMemo component. Are you using that or something else?

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