New Delphi
Borland has recently released an "Open Letter to the Delphi Community", describing the features you can expect from the next Delphi version.What you can find is that Octane will enable building 100% pure .Net applications, including Windows Forms, Asp.net WebForms and Web Services. Delphi 8 will also ease the process of migrating standard Delphi Windows application (that use VCL) to .Net applications using the *new* VCL for .Net components library.
Just as a reminder, Borland has already provided (with Delphi 7 Studio) the preview compiler for .Net applications (both Windows forms and Web forms - asp.net web solutions).
Plans for the release of Octane are somewhere around the end of this year.
What to expect?
As explained in the Octane and Delphi Q&A, VCL for .NET is a large subset of the most common classes in VCL for Win32. The best thing is that Delphi for .NET applications will have the full access to MS .Net framework objects (like ADO.NET) - enabling Delphi developers to, for example, create .Net components and offer them to developers using VB.NET, C# and any other .net compliant language. Most importantly, current Delphi features will be supported (and enhanced) on Octane for developers building Win32 based applications.A recent Borland's "Open Letter to the Delphi Community" gives us some more details: Octane will be 100% .NET - an adjustment to previously published plan which had included an update to our Win32 Delphi (Delphi 7) technology in the Octane release.
Interesting: "Borland certainly believes that there are still many more Win32 projects to be developed with Delphi for years to come and do plan to support and update the Win32 Delphi technology in the future."
What's your opinion, will Borland ever release Delphi 8 (Win32)? Join the poll.
Octane? Sidewinder? Galileo?
Sidewinder is another code name for the project Borland is currently developing (beta testing), a RAD Development Environment for pure C# Language .NET development. Sidewinder will provide a solution that enables developers to build .NET applications that are interoperable in heterogeneous environments such as Java and CORBA, and leverage multiple vendors' Enterprise databases such as IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft. Sidewinder will also provide multi-vendor ADO.NET support such as Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, and Borland InterBase.Galileo is supposed to be an alternative to developers wanting to build .NET applications but prefer using tools and technologies from vendors other than Microsoft. It seems that both Sidewinder and Octane are code names for much larger project Borland is working on - Galileo.
Where to learn Delphi for .Net NOW?
If you are just half the excited as I am, you are asking yourself how/where to start learning .NET right now. Delphi for .NET section on this site hosts articles and technical information that will help you start and master Delphi for .NET. You'll find out about IL, aspx, XML Web Services, msil, ... how to start building ASP.NET dynamic web pages, etc.Don't wait, the future belongs to Octane!
