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Section 4: versions are there and how do they differ?
Borland (as they were then) has a long tradition in the creation of high speed compilers. One of their best known products was Turbo
Pascal - a tool that many programmers cut their teeth on. With the rise in importance of the Windows environment, it was only a matter of
time before development tools started to appear that were specific to this new environment.
In the very beginning, Windows produced SDKs (software development kits) that were totally non-visual (user interface development was
totally separated from the development of the actual application), and required great patience and some genius to get anything working
with. Whilst these tools slowly improved, they still required a really good understanding of the inner workings of Windows.
To a great extent these criticisms were dispatched by the release of Microsoft's Visual Basic product, which attempted to bring
Windows development to the masses. It achieved this to a great extent too, and remains a popular product today. However, it suffered from
several drawbacks:
1) It wasn't as stable as it might have been
2) It was an interpreted language and hence was slow to run
3) It had as its underlying language BASIC, and most "real" programmers weren't so keen!
Into this environment arrived the eye opening Delphi I product, and in many ways the standard for visual development tools for Windows
was set. This first version was a 16 bit compiler, and produced executable code that would run on Windows 3.1 and Windows 3.11. Of
course, Microsoft have ensured (up to now) that their 32 bit operating systems (Win95, Win98, and Win NT) will all run 16 bit
applications, however, many of the features that were introduced in these newer operating systems are not accessible to the 16 bit
applications developed with Delphi I.
Delphi 2 was released quite soon after Delphi I, and in fact included a full distribution of Delphi I on the same CD. Delphi 2, (and all
subsequent versions) have been 32 bit compilers, producing code that runs exclusively on 32bit Windows platforms. (We ignore for
simplicity the WIN32S DLLs which allow Win 3.1x to run some 32 bit applications).
Delphi is currently standing at Version 4.0, with a new release (version 5.0) expected shortly. In its latest version, Delphi has
become somewhat feature loaded, and as a result, we would argue, less stable than the earlier versions. However, in its defence, Delphi
(and Borland products in general) have always been more stable than their competitors products, and the majority of Delphi 4's glitches
are minor and forgivable - just don't try and copy/paste a selection of your code, midway through a debugging session!
The reasons for the version progression include the addition of new components, improvements in the development environment, the
inclusion of more internet related support and improvements in the documentation. Delphi at version 4 is a very mature product, and
Inprise has always been responsive in developing the product in the direction that the market requires it to go. Predominantly this means
right now, the inclusion of more and more Internet, Web and CORBA related tools and components - a trend we are assured continues with
the release of version 5.0
For each version of Delphi there are several sub-versions, varying in cost and features, from the most basic "Developer" version to the
most complete (and expensive) "Client Server" version. The variation in price is substantial, and if you are contemplating a purchase,
you should study the feature list carefully to ensure you are not paying for features you will never use. Even the most basic "Developer"
version contains the vast majority of the features you are likely to need on a day to day basis. Don't assume that you will need Client
Server, simply because you are intending to write a large database application - The developer edition is quite capable of this.
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