In short Derek is trying to suggest that for a novice (Delphi) developer it is very hard, if possible, to find quality Delphi learning materials. Derek does not say that Delphi tutorials do not exist - just that for a novice developer it is hard to find how and where to learn Delphi basis.
Derek asks: How well is the neophyte supported on their path through the early steps of Delphi Training?
A common answer to Derek's question by those that have answered, mainly experienced Delphi developers, is that he should ask questions and search for answers using Google Groups, Web, and that mostly all the question that a new developer can ask have already been answered.
I do agree with the above - all the questions have been answered. However if that is the case then why bother creating Thirty Delphi Demos in Thirty Days?
My View - Loud Thinking
In a way I have to give my voice to Derek and support what he is trying to say! Tutorials for true beginners who want to learn how to create Windows application and their choice is Delphi ... something like that really does not exist in a way that it is easily available from CodeGears web site.It is very hard for a novice (wannabe Delphi developer) to find the exact steps he/she needs to follow in order to understand what Windows programming is about and how to use Delphi to create applications.
10 years ago you only had BDE now you have ADO, dbExpress, ... a novice developer IS confused! 10 years ago you were talking "I'm programming in Delphi" not "I'm using Delphi for Win32 to ... and Delphi for .Net to ..." !? What!
Yes we all started learning Delphi when Internet "did not exist". Today there's so much information that "kids" simply do not know what to look for and where to find how to [ask questions].
A general suggestion to Derek was that he should "ask questions", and look for answers. The truth is that a novice does not even know what to ask!
Once a novice knows what to ask - the answers will appear from everywhere! This is where Delphi comunity strength is!
I think/hope Dr.Bob, Cantu and other that have trained novice will agree. If not, then my experience is different - new developers that pick Delphi simply do not know what path to follow. "What database, what controls, what Delphi for what?!"
Check out MS and their web site with "C# for kids" - this is the way to learn C# for a true novice!
About Delphi Programming
Note: I've added this section after writing the post above.Derek also stated that he was able to find some "fragmentary tutorials" on this web site. Writing lengthy tutorials is a real challenge. People reading on the Internet do not want to read - they scan text - and if they find what they are looking for - the'll grab only that important paragraph or a section of code.
This is why most of my articles are "how to do this or that in Delphi". But for a true Delphi novice it is hard to come to to a point where he is able to ask "How do I do this in Delphi". A novice Delphi developer does not know what a button is and what a window is! And those "simple" questions are the hard ones to answer!
Related:
When I started, I cut my teeth on Marco Cantu’s books. His website at marcocantu.com has some great resources for learning Delphi. Once you have the hang of the material there, any of his books provide a greater depth of understanding.
In addition to Marco, I found http://www.delphiforfun.org to be very helpful and Gary is quick to answer questions and modify his programs given sound suggestions.
My company bought these delphi training DVD’s from a company called KeyStone Learning and they were awful. We brought on a student from the local college and instead of training hands on, the owner bought the DVD’s. There are around 12 DVD’s which explain next no code. Mostly moving components and their properties.
Also, nice looking, but miserable to operate interface on the DVD menus.
Books:
I was amazed by Marco’s Mastering Delphi 3 when I was ~16. I recently bought his Delphi 2007 Handbook, and it’s great.
Web:
I have found that this site, delphi.about.com is the most fun to learn Delphi, and I have grown stronger with Delphi, by visiting & learning something new every day.
I keep recommending these to every fellow coder, beginner or not.
What is said in the article is also true for non-novices.
I’ve been using Delphi since day 1 (in fact I came across the install of Delphi 1 earlier today).
I ‘m not a professional programmer but a very enthusiastic hobby programmer and as such I’m always learning something new.
For that the Web is a god send, my experience is that if it can be done in Delphi, somebody’s done it and there will be references on the Net.
You may not be able to understand the code you find at first but keep at it – you will.
Google is a programmer’s best friend
Cheers
Taoh
I do understand this novice’s ordeal. I have been using Pascal/Delphi ever since Turbo Pascal 3. But now using the Turbo Win32 Express Edition, there are many questions the answers must be found for by stubbornly searching the web. But I taught myself C# in a jiffy by using M’Soft Visual Studio, also Express Edition, and found almost all the answers in the M’soft pages without much ado.
Lessons to be learned by CodeGear !
Btw, is there any chance that we, poor Express using sods, will ever be enabled to install 3rd party components ?
I came to Delphi with a DBase/Foxbase background and used Delphi “n” Developers Guide (Pacheco & Reixeira) and Secrets of Delphi (Lischner) together with Marco Cantu’s books. I use Delphi 3.
I think part of the problem is that later Delphis hide too much of the construction by offering really high level components. These can be used without full understanding of the underlying issues.
I think starting with database solutions is not a good basis, and it would be better to start with other issues. I have produced a dictation management product which is a non-database (although it has data aspects) but majors on GUI, audio media & system design aspects.
It took me quite a while to really understand OO concepts (rather than how Delphi actually implemented them).
General technical instruction books appear to be light on concepts but quick to go to an Hello World program, so readers can code without understanding why the code is that way. Nor can readers place the following explanatory matter in the context of the concepts.
Alan Lloyd
I came to Delphi with some pascal and C++ understanding and a specific idea I want to develop. I agree with the original comment that it is very difficult to “learn” Delphi from scratch. For me the issue has been that the long list of members to Delphi classes for containers, actions, menus, etc. are not well explained. For instance it was a struggle to understand how an event such as onsomethinghappened relates to a method Dosomething happened and fsomething happened. Drilling onto the code provided delphi to follow the proces involves reearching an incredibly large geneology! Other difficult areas I have been wrestling with include the relationship of actions and action lists with menus etc. How do they link? where is the client list kept? If I want to trigger an action with code do I use taction.execute? If you read the description of taction.execute in Delphi Help, it is not at all clear what execute actually does behind the method name. While it is true that people will drill into an article for the item they are looking for instead of reading everything, it is also true that much of the information on the net that is available is very fragmentary. What I would really like ois a Delphi textbook that teaches Delphi classes and containers in depth and thoroughly so that all the information is in one place and I could use it as a desk reference.
I’m in that very situation of not knowing where to look for a really good source for learning Delphi. Apart from a couple of websites like this one and http://www.delphibasics.co.uk there is a minuscule amount of help on the web! The documentation that comes with Delphi might be a good reference for someone who already knows how to use a component but it is of little help to people like me who, even with some programming experience (I do a bit of PHP), have no idea where to start. How am I meant to know what component I want to do this or that – there’s literally thousands of them – each with dozens of properties.
Of course once you know how to use a good number of components I’m sure Delphi is a joy to use. Additionally having lots of properties is also good in a way as it lets you customize every aspect of your application.
Recently I started reading a book ‘Inside Delphi 2006′ by Ivan Hladni. Its probably the first place I found out how to do those things that you really want to be able to create but before you just didn’t know where to start (e.g. how to create a splash screen, a toolbar, main menu etc.).