- A web, a web. A kingdom for a Web! Yes, I'm talking asp.net now. Again, since Delphi 8 is pure .Net, it supports ASP.NET Web Forms. ASP.NET is the .NET programming environment for building Internet applications with an HTML front end. If you are familiar with the "old" ASP, I'll have to disappoint you and tell that ASP is nothing like ASP.NET. Since, you are, as a Delphi developer, familiar with RAD and object oriented programming using properties, methods, and events, you will find the ASP.NET model for building rich Web applications very straight forward. Some Delphi powered asp.net solutions are already available, like Web Portal and Web Store.
Here's a must read: A Beginner's Guide to Asp.Net Programming for Delphi developers - Mobile devices. Mobile devices, you say?! No, I can build for PocketPC now? Yes, you can!
ASP.NET mobile controls enable developers to target a wide range of mobile devices, including Web-enabled cell phones, pagers, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) such as the Pocket PC. - Databases? What is that Ado.Net? Is this ADO (dbGO)? What does it mean "data is disconnected"? So many questions so much to lear about. Let's just say (for the moment) that from a Delphi developer perspective, ADO.NET is comparable to accessing databases using ADO and VCL's ClientDataSet component, however there are many (and again: many) differences as well. ADO.NET is designed as a back-end data store for all .NET programming models, including Web Forms, Web Services, and Windows Forms. Again, Delphi 8 gives even more: BDP.NET, the Borland Data Provider for .NET. What's more, In addition to being able to build new database applications using ADO.NET and BDP.NET, you can migrate existing database applications to take advantage of .NET capabilities. What this means is that Delphi 8 comes with BDE.NET (to help move/convert BDE applications), dbExpress.NET (that provide comparable functionality as those found in Delphi 7 dbEx press), IBX.NET (good old InterBase Express controls), etc.
Hmm, it seems that the announced "few simple statements" have turned into a 500 words of text :)
The truth is that .Net framework is really big (with the capital B) - one could write a small book trying to describe what great possibilities Delphi 8 for .Net provides to a Delphi developer. After all, Delphi from version 1, was THE Windows development tool, Delphi 8 could be your "THE" .Net development tool - you'll just need to give yourself enough time to release the full power.
What you can already do, is look for some .Net related books, read about VCL for .NET, read about why "Delphi may be the only choice you have", or even (for fun) read one conspiracy theory: ".Net is Borland's"!
Of course, if you are in doubt about choosing Delphi for the .net development, go and read the "Choosing a Language for .NET Development".
Back to the drawing board!
Yes, I know. You've finally mastered Delphi, and now you have to learn the whole new framework. Don't get desperate, Delphi 8 has all those RTL functions you are used to, the same old VCL is here, however, Delphi evolves. As you know, Delphi roots are in Pascal, and over the years Delphi became much more that Pascal. Today, Delphi 8 for .NET is an integrated development environment for building Delphi applications that run in the Microsoft .NET.What to expect?
In the future installments of this article, you should expect to learn about the new language features, units v.s. namespaces, deprecated features, VCL Forms Application v.s. Windows Forms Application, etc.
We'll also be exploring some of the most interesting the .NET Classes, and of course database access with ADO.NET.
In general, this series of articles is not targeted to new Delphi developers, those that have to learn Delphi programming from the beginning.
Until the next time .. if you have any comment or question be sure to post on the Delphi Programming Forum.
Forward to Part II: About unit namespaces and the new class visibility and access specifiers
