David Heffernan

Isn't the real problem that you have interpreted UTF-8 encoded data as though it were ANSI? I mean, it's clearly not ASCII because none of the characters in your code are in the ASCII set. You can actually delete all of these StringReplace calls by simply using the correct encoding for your extracted data.

What version of python? You'd get this error with Python 2.

FWIW the Delphi code doesn't compile. Always paste code that is known to work, rather than copy it out manually.

There's an awful lot of anecdote doing a lot of heavy lifting in this thread. I'm seldom persuaded by anecdote. Some thoughts occur to me though. If companies want developers to code in Delphi, but want some body else to train them, then this isn't sustainable. People retire. And then what? Also, I just don't buy the idea that smart talented developers can't learn new technology quickly. We took on a uni placement student this year, who had done two years at uni and no Delphi. They were productive in weeks. And most of the learning was of our code base. I honestly think that if you aren't prepared to take on talented developers and teach them a new language and libraries, then you have far bigger problems as an organisation.

That's not my experience. But when I hire people I'm looking long term.

Given your definition of a developer, writing requirements etc, what even is a Delphi developer. Aren't there just developers?

It doesn't much matter what anybody expects the design to be. Too late for that now. Given that it takes the string as an argument, and it's a static class method, I think it's safe to conclude that you don't call it as an instance method. Wouldn't it just be better if the language forced you to call it on a class?

What is the subject of the method then? What argument are you going to pass, and what purpose does myString serve?

Surely it's If string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(someStr) then like in .net

I'm so confused.

Start exists for a reason. It doesn't exist to create a thread and start it immediately. I still don't know the point of this code. What is the high level overview of what you are trying to do here?

UI code must run on the main thread. Although I have no clue what the point of this code us, I can see that it breaks that rule. Sad to see a thread be created suspended only to be immediately started.

Yes, but I'd not read your post and was making a general comment to the overall topic.

Why just wish for relaxing the 255 limit? Why not aim for multi line literals and more?

Not the 64 bit windows compiler

I'm not sure that @programmerdelphi2k is correct here. Consider RTTI. The compiler / linker can strip any code that it knows cannot be called. But with RTTI code can be referenced in ways that are only known at runtime. Therefore any code that can be reached by RTTI cannot be stripped.. Even if the linked knows, through static analysis, that it cannot be called directly

stockholm syndrome

It's almost impossible to help you

What's wrong with a simple edit control?

because SizeOf(Char) = 2?

Write a program that does Writeln(SizeOf(Char));

The pascal code in the question has pointer access and arithmetic

What is SizeOf(Char) on your system. If it is 2 then that would explain everything.

There's really no significant difference here between C and Pascal.

There's a bug in your code. It surprise you to learn that we can't see your screen.