Leaderboard

@bravesofts Maybe you would have better chances of convincing people if you would write your own thoughts instead of letting AI write them for you Delphi already has VCL and FMX frameworks. Feature wise it makes very little sense for Embarcadero to introduce yet another visual framework. Wrapping WinUI can be done through 3rd party, it doesn't have to be supported by Embarcadero. I would prefer that they focus on things that cannot be provided by 3rd party, like: compiler, debugger, language features, IDE functionality....

Have you considered joining Embarcadero's marketing team?

🔍 Will GUI-Based Development Go Extinct? 🤔 Some argue that GUI-based development is fading away in favor of code-centric or terminal-driven development. However, the reality is quite different: GUI development is evolving, not disappearing. 🧐 Why GUI-Based Development Won't Disappear? 1️⃣👨‍💻 Humans Prefer Productivity and Speed People naturally gravitate towards tools that enhance efficiency and reduce complexity. Development environments like Delphi and RAD Studio provide rapid application development, a demand that won't fade away anytime soon. Even with AI-powered coding assistants, GUI tools remain a time-saving necessity in many domains. Most developers prefer being productive rather than just looking like hackers typing endlessly in a green-on-black terminal. Writing code should be about building real solutions efficiently, not about proving how much you can type without a mouse! 2️⃣ 🚀 AI Is Enhancing GUI-Based Development, Not Replacing It AI-powered tools like GitHub Copilot, JetBrains AI, and AI-driven refactoring are deeply integrated into GUI-based IDEs. Delphi, C#/.NET, and Python IDEs now leverage AI to accelerate development, proving that GUI-based environments remain essential. 3️⃣ 🏢 Businesses Need Ready-to-Use Tools, Not Just Code In the real world, businesses prioritize rapid, efficient software development. Companies aren’t interested in reinventing the wheel—hence, RAD (Rapid Application Development) environments remain highly relevant. Delphi, C#/.NET, and even Java-based UI frameworks continue to play a critical role in enterprise solutions. 4️⃣ 🛠️ Clean Code and GUI Development Are Not Mutually Exclusive Some mistakenly believe that GUI development leads to messy, unstructured code, which is far from true. Modern Delphi supports clean architecture, OOP principles, design patterns (MVVM, MVP, SOLID), and well-structured projects. Many Delphi projects today adhere to clean coding practices just as rigorously as C# or Java applications. ----------- 🔹 The False Comparison Between Delphi and VB ✅ Delphi is NOT just another "Visual Basic"—it is a professional-grade development environment that offers: Full-fledged OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) support. Robust architectural patterns (MVVM, Layered Architecture, SOLID, Dependency Injection). Comprehensive libraries like FireMonkey and VCL for cross-platform and native development. Seamless integration with Windows APIs and modern OS features. ❌ On the other hand, VB had fundamental limitations in its OOP and architectural capabilities. 📌 Comparing Delphi to VB is completely inaccurate and misleading. 🟢 Delphi Is Continuously Evolving ✅ Delphi Has Strong OOP and Architectural Support Delphi has long evolved beyond just "drag-and-drop" development. It supports Dependency Injection, Unit Testing, and scalable architectures. ✅ Seamless Integration with Windows APIs, Including WinRT While Embarcadero has not natively included full WinUI support, they have provided highly professional WinRT integration using TWinRTGenericImport. This approach is similar to their work on Android libraries, offering a clean and efficient way to interact with WinRT. ✅ The Delphi Community Is More Active Than Ever GitHub repositories, Stack Overflow discussions, and Delphi-focused YouTube content demonstrate the language’s ongoing evolution. Modern Delphi development embraces clean code, architectures, and high-quality patterns. ⚡ Final Thoughts: GUI Development Isn't Dying—It's Evolving! ❌ The claim that GUI-based development is disappearing is an oversimplification. ✅ In reality, tools like Delphi are thriving because they adapt to modern development needs. ✅ Delphi is no longer just about drag-and-drop—it supports advanced architectures, OOP, and scalable patterns. ✅ The competition with C#, Java, and C++ does not mean Delphi is obsolete—on the contrary, it's gaining new strengths. 💡 However, if there’s one thing I can guarantee will go extinct, it’s not Delphi itself, but the era of classic, messy "spaghetti code" development. 🚀 Most modern Delphi developers no longer even have the patience or willingness to open old, disorganized projects because of their lack of structure, logic, and maintainability. 🔥 Clean, well-architected code is the new standard—and that’s where Delphi is heading! 🔥 Delphi will remain a powerhouse as long as it continues to adapt and evolve! 🚀

Embarcadero has been having too many coals in the fire for years now. Instead of opening the next can of worms, they should be fixing basics like code completion. I remember being in the Microsoft Technology Adoption Program where you got Teams meetings with the developers behind WinUI and other Windows components, got shown not yet released roadmaps and got to ask questions. Back then, it was basically impossible to properly use WinUI outside of Microsoft's Visual Studio (not sure if it was WinUI2 or 3). At that time, they openly replied to me that they had no plans to change that. Except WebView2 has been usable for basically everybody from everywhere, and it's actually good. You can see it being used in a lot of software, not just Microsoft's own products. Just look at how much stuff Microsoft has abandoned in the last couple of years, how much of the "Universal Windows" approach has been dialled down or completely removed already. Not to mention that new GUI stuff has been highly dependant on the most current Windows version. WebView2 even works in Windows 7. I honestly was interested in WinUI around 2018 to 2020 or so, but it certainly never took off. I firmly believe it is not relevant anymore.

That's why they pay us the big bucks 🙂 Here's some links that might be relevant: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/access/cannot-use-odbc-or-oledb https://how-to.aimms.com/Articles/129/129-MSACCESS-32bit-64bit.html

Haha, no, but I do appreciate well-thought-out discussions about Delphi’s future. At the end of the day, it's all about exploring possibilities rather than dismissing them outright.

[RSP-41990] Style the Windows Task dialog (Vcl) - Embarcadero Technologies

Yet another Microsoft frontend technology? Microsoft do have a capability to provide the technology, the tool chain, the tools and the IDE or their 'Community' does. The Delphi approach matters for mid-sized applications as result of Microsoft or Apple denying the necessity for dialog based applications in the 1990s, which have been covered by various web technologies later on. I doubt that it makes lots of sense to integrate another GUI technology in anything else but a development environment pretty similar to PyScripter. For different reasons the have always been small applications in a Win 3.x tradition (utilities with GUI) and the real big/complex ones. For the latter C/C++ setting up bigger teams paid. In both cases no one ever needed a GUI designer and for the first the shortcomings of MS GUI technologies concerning GUI in case of Visual C/C++ didn't hurt. VW was the solution for the dialog based applications and those were mid-sized. VB suffered from the OLE and/or early COM approach to let the business developers design the GUI and the business logic and the controls and such stuff should have been implemented in C/C++. Remember Microsoft touting the return to one development language and that was the C language and C++ later on. The golden opportunity these days arose wtih so called Y2k Bug and companies investing in replacing the IBM Mainframe/Host and the growing of the finance industry in the 1990s. The VCL approach is lean enough and still does it's job pretty well, but for most of us. For the last decade or longer developer face/experience a certain kind of meta programming, in a different sense but the original one, by JetBrains or special development environment aiming at a certain technology. PyCharm vs. Wing and 20 other alternatives. PyScripter shows in lists of the 10 top Python development environments, while the Wing IDE requires a top 20 list in order to show up. A few years ago, Wing was ranked number 2 or 3 and fell back year by year. If people want a Thonny on steroids there is nothing EMB could do against. Have a look at VS Code or the new JetBrains IDEs. Since the shift to this century we see strong trend into direction of 'terminal style' development combined with more sophisticated and specialized technological underlying. So we can just say, GUI driven development found it's place, but has been a tiny rabbit-shit on the long time-line in which GUI focused programming in addition had it's decade in the 1990s. Third-party does not mean, not being in the position to implement your own widget-set, it means that writing ones own widget set is simply to expensive in a sense of time consuming. Even in case of WPF the controls shipped can be regarded as a sound proof of concept of the underlying technology. The idea of 'the GUI technology' is a very Microsoftish thing. To mimic the GUI is by far an/the approach enjoying broader acceptance on even on a mid-term already. ... Heavy rings on fingers wave Another star denies the grave See the nowhere crowd, cry the nowhere cheers of honor Like twisted vines that grow Hide and swallow mansions whole Dim the light of an already faded primadonna (Metallica, The Memory Remains) Love the title of the song :) Beside all your valid thoughts and arguments from a technical perspective, let's say it that way, 'If you are still developing VB-style at the age of 30, you must have done something wrong and using RAD Studio for that changes nothing concerning this remark' - not talking about you.

The above posts make a perfect case for why Ctrl+B should be used sparingly.

Not quite. See for instance Ohh...WinUI3 is really dead! - When can we expect the announcement? · microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml · Discussion #9417 The Microsoft strategy for GUI App development is utterly messed up: WinForms WPF Xamarin Forms UWP WinUI3 MAUI And there is no longer a GUI designer. You have to develop XAML in a text editor. Discussion: WinUI 3.0 XAML Designer · Issue #5917 · microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml

SQL Server Express is ano brainer, even InnoSetup can handle its installation automatically without user interaction. When you outgrow SQL Server Express, you can upgrade to a more powerful SQL Server edition such as Standard or Enterprise, or migrate your data to a scalable cloud-based database solution like Azure SQL Database. Avoid exotic DBMSs that introduce you to a labyrinth of their own dialects, from which there is no turning back.

RSS-3125: Add Option to edit DCC_ResourcePath

For Delphi / RAD Studio version 12.3, the original solution provided by Jim:  C:\> getitcmd -i=fmxlinux-12-1.78 works "out of the box" with no issues !! ( --> no "patch" needed as in 12.2 ) You can use this solution to get "FMX Linux" until they reach a final agreement with Kryukov's state ...